The two men looked at each other, horror-stricken at the magnitude of the suggestion.
“She might as well ask us to get an elephant,” muttered Fletcher morosely. “There’s not a goat nearer than San Francisco.”
“And it would take us two weeks anyway to get one up from there and across the mountains from Sacramento,” said Moreau.
“By the time you got it here it’d be the most expensive goat you ever bucked up against,” said his partner disdainfully.
“A cow!” exclaimed Moreau. “Say, Lucy, would a cow do?”
“A cow!” came the muffled answer; “oh, it don’t need a whole cow.”
“But a cow would do? If I could get a cow the baby could be fed on the milk, couldn’t it?”
“Oh, yes; it ’ud do first-rate.”
“Very well, I’ll get a cow. Don’t you bother any more; I’ll have a cow here by to-morrow noon. The baby’ll have to hold out till then, for, not having a decent horse, I can’t get it here any sooner.”
“And where do you calk’late to get a cow?” demanded Fletcher; “cows ain’t much more common than goats round these parts.”