"I'll write home right away and find out," declared Sammy.
"Do you think your folks will let you go?" asked Frank.
"Of course they will," put in Bob, confidently. "They let him come from Fairview to this place, didn't they? Why won't they be willing then to let him go out West?"
"That's quite another thing," said Sammy, doubtfully. "They know that if I got sick here or anything happened to me they could get to me in a few hours. Then, too, they know your mother and feel perfectly safe as long as I'm staying here with her. But out West, it's hundreds of miles away——"
"Hundreds!" exclaimed Bob, scornfully. "It's thousands of miles away, that's what it is!"
"How many thousands, smarty?" asked Sammy, a little roiled at the interruption.
"It must be ten thousand anyway," returned Bob positively.
"Ten thousand, your grandmother!" retorted Sammy. "It isn't half as far as that to the Pacific Ocean."
Bob would have liked to contradict him, but geography was not one of his strong points and he thought it might be a little better to stay silent.
"As I was saying," went on Sammy, throwing out his chest a little, "there isn't any telling what the folks may think about my going so far away. But I'll get some paper and a pen and write to them this very minute."