"Let out
your belts to the last notch and I'll guarantee they'll be tight when you
get up from the table."
"That listens good," said Tom. "I'm perfectly willing you should call my
bluff."
With jest and laughter the afternoon wore on and the shadows cast by the
declining sun began to lengthen. After their long confinement on the
train, the boys felt as though they had been released from prison. They
had been so accustomed to a free, unfettered life that they had chafed at
the three days' detention, where the only chance they had to stretch
their limbs had been afforded by the few minutes wait at stations. Now
they enjoyed to the full the sense of release that came to them in their
new surroundings. The West, as seen from a car window, was a vastly
different thing when viewed from the seat of a buckboard going at a
spanking gait over the limitless plains.
For that they were limitless was the impression conveyed by the unbroken
skyline that seemed to be a thousand miles away. Only in the northwest
did mountains loom. They had never before had such an impression of the
immensity of space.
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