had options on stock which gave him the controlling interest,
he stated, and had little doubt that the remainder could be acquired
easily. He urged Prentiss to come at his earliest convenience and look
it over.

Toomey sent the letter to the hotel in Chicago which Prentiss had given
as one of his permanent addresses and it was duly forwarded. After the
lapse of a reasonable time, the answer had come from Denver. It had
contained proper expressions of appreciation for the invitation, a wish
to be remembered cordially to Mrs. Toomey, 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 contagion
of her husband's enthusiasm.

To say that Toomey looked forward with eagerness to this meeting of the
Boosters Club is to express it inadequately. He counted the hours when
he should be reinstated 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 imminent 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 in sight in
the vicinity to polish the brass trimmings of the world's navies, if a
"live wire" could be induced to take hold of its developm