The Fighting Shepherdess

The Toomeys had traveled in a stateroom, over Mrs. Toomey's feeble protest, and the best room with bath in one of the best hotels in Chicago was not too good for Mr. Toomey. They had thought to stay three weeks, with reasonable economy, and return with a modest bank balance, but the familiar environment was too much for Toomey, who dropped back into his old way of living as though he never had been out of it, while the new clothes and the brightness of the atmosphere of prosperity after the years of anxiety and poverty drugged Mrs. Toomey's conscience and caution into a profound slumber--the latter to be awakened only when, counting the banknotes in her husband's wallet, she was startled to discover that they had little more than enough to pay their hotel bill and return to Prouty in comfort. If either of them remembered the source from which their present luxurious enjoyment came, neither mentioned it.

The breakfast and service this morning were perfect and Mrs. Toomey sighed contentedly as she crumpled her napkin and reached for the paper.

"There's been a terrible blizzard west of the Mississippi," she murmured from the depths of the Journal.

"I'm glad we've missed a little misery," Toomey replied carelessly. "It'll mean late trains and all the rest of it. We'd better stay over until they're running again on schedule."

Mrs. Toomey ignored, if she heard, the suggestion, and continued: "It says that the stock, and the sheep in particular, have died like flies on the range, and scores of herders have been frozen."

"There's more herders where they came from." Toomey brushed the ashes from his cigarette into the excavated grapefruit, and yawned and stretched like a cat on its cushion.

"Think of something pleasant--what are we going to do this evening?"

"We mustn't do anything," Mrs. Toomey protested quickly. "If we spend any more we will have to get a check cashed, and that might be awkward, since we know no one; besides, we can't afford it. Let's have a quiet evening."

"A quiet evening!" Toomey snorted. "That's my idea of hell. I'll tell you about me, Old Dear--I'm going to have one more whirl if I have to walk back to Prouty, and you might as well go with me."

Since he was determined, Mrs. Toomey arrived at the same conclusion also, for not only did she too shudder at the thought of a quiet evening, but her presence was more or less of a restraint upon his extravagant impulses. She endeavored to soothe her uneasiness by telling herself that they could make up for it by some economy in traveling. And just one more good play--what, after all, did it really matter?