“Understand: I don’t think Washington will approve of our being held up, and I will have you repaid, if that is possible.”
He nodded.
“Take some of the boys and round up those cattle. I may likely require seven or eight two-year-olds.”
By this time too they had collected a wad of bills. I went back to the Navajo and began talking again.
“Let us understand this,” I told Billa Chezzi. “This shooting was not like a fight between two men, enemies. These were boys—children. They may have been playing [[322]]together. It was an accident. Of course, that is a careless boy, and Washington doesn’t want him loose in this country. Sooner or later, he would likely hurt someone else. And I will send him to a place where he cannot hurt any more people. We have such places for bad boys.”
“But what will this poor woman do for a son?” he whined.
“You will have to find her a son from among the Navajo. She wouldn’t want a Hopi boy. Every time she looked at him she would think of this happening and be sad. That wouldn’t do. This is what I will do for the father and mother: I will get money from these Hopi, and what is lacking I will pay in cattle.”
A NAVAJO BOY WHO HAS NEVER BEEN TO ANY SCHOOL
There was a consultation among them. Some grumbled, but I knew that most of them would regard cattle as better property than a Hopi lad who would have to be watched. They saw too that the Hopi stockmen were busy rounding up the herd. Then they talked a bit with the trader, who was a man of good advices. Ed spoke to me:—