“And so we will send him to jail for—ten days.”
“Ten days!” I cried out. “Why, he nearly killed Greeley! That old man will suffer for weeks. You mean ten weeks, don’t you?”
“No,” they said. “Ten days is a long time in jail.”
The appellate power came into action.
“Your decision, gentlemen, is overruled.”
Hooker brightened, expecting a remission of at least five days, which would save his face at the mesa and perhaps prevent the prisoner from hating him for many years.
“The prisoner will be confined for the period of sixty days, and during that time he will be employed at hard labor.”
Hooker gasped, trembled, and was speechless.
“You are a man without mercy,” declared old Hostin Nez.
That was my last session of the Indian Court in the [[135]]Hopi-Navajo country with native judges sitting. One might as well expect justice from a goose.