THE FIGHTING SHEPHERDESS
and concluded with the statement that his desire to see that section of the country had in no wise abated and, if possible, he would do so in the early winter, at which time he would be glad to look into the merits of the irrigation project.
Noncommittal, but friendly, the letter sent the blood racing through Toomey's veins like a stiff drink of brandy. It stimulated his imagination like strong coffee and evoked the roseate dreams of hasheesh. Even Mrs. Toomey, cautious and conservative as she was by nature and through many disappointments, could not resist the con- tagion of her husband's enthusiasm.
To say that Toomey looked forward with eagerness to this meeting of the Boosters Club is to express it inade- quately. He counted the hours when he should be rein- stated in the position which he had occupied when he first came to Prouty. Unexpressed, but none the less present, was a desire to show his teeth at those who had humiliated him by lending him money.
The Boosters Club now occupied a storeroom which it had rent free until such time as its owner should acquire a tenant. This privilege had been granted some three years previous, and there seemed no inmiinent danger of the club being obliged to vacate.
Behind a fly-specked window an equally fly-specked sheaf of wheat from>North Dakota, and an ear of corn of gargantuan proportions from Kansas, proclaimed the Club's belief that similar results might be obtained from the local soil — when it had water. There was a sugar beet of amazing circumference that had been raised in an adjacent county, and a bottle of sand that the Club was certain contained a rare mineral, if it were possible to get an honest assay on it. They exhibited also a can of
pulverized gypsum, of which there was a sufficient quantity
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