Читаем Some Buried Caesar полностью

The stockman snorted. "A good grade Holstein maybe."

"No. Humor me, sir. Take my question as serious and answer it. Why couldn't he?"

"Because he couldn't."

"But why not? There were, I don't know how many, Guernsey bulls at the exposition, only seventeen miles away, and cattle trucks there to haul them in. There were some much closer, here at his father's place, within leading distance. Might not one of them, though vastly inferior to the champion Caesar in the finer qualities which I don't know about, re- semble him sufficiently in size and coloring to pass as a substitute? A substitute for only one day, since the butcher was to come on Wednesday? Who would have known the difference?"

McMillan snorted again. "I would."

"Granted. You could have mistaken no other bull for your Caesar. But everyone else might easily have been fooled. At the very least there was an excellent sporting chance of it. It is obvious at what point such a scheme might have entered Clyde's mind. Yesterday afternoon he was sitting on the pasture fence, looking at Hickory Caesar Grindon through his binoculars. It occurred to him that there was a bull of similar general appearance, size and markings, either in his father's herd or among the collection at the exposition, which he had just come from; and that accidental reflection blossomed into an idea. Chased away from the pasture, he went to the house and made the wager with Mr. Pratt. Followed from the terrace to his car by you, he called you aside and made a proposal."