In sombre silence he listened day by day as the jail-lawyers—wise criminals who had been in the toils before—cooked up stories to explain away misdeeds; he watched day by day as the prisoners came down from their trial, some with bowed heads or cursing blindly, others laughing hysterically as they scuttled out the door; and many a man who had sworn to a lie went free where simple-minded sinners plead guilty and took their fate. Some there were who had boggled their stories because their dull minds could not compass the deceit; the district attorney had torn them to flinders, raging and threatening them with his finger for the perjured fools they were, and the judge had given them the limit for swearing to a lie. Even in jail it was the poor and lowly who were punished, while the jail-lawyers and those who could afford the petty dollar that hired them took shelter behind the law. Yes, it was all a game, and the best man won—if he held the cards.
Slowly and with painstaking care Pecos went over his own case, comparing it with these others, and his heart sank as he saw where the odds lay. The spotted calf was his—he could swear to it—but it bore the brand of Crittenden and he had lost his bill of sale. There were forty two-gun cowboys working for Crit and any one of them would swear him into jail for a drink—they had done it, so he knew. José Garcia was afraid to tell the truth and Crittenden would scare him worse than ever before the trial took place. Ah, that trial—it was more than five months off yet and he could not stir a foot! Once outside the bars and free-footed he could shake up the dust; he could rustle up his witnesses and his evidence and fight on an equality with Crit. But no, the munneypullistic classes had a bigger pull on him than ever, now—he was jailed in default of bail and no one would put up the price. God, what an injustice! A rich man—a man with a single friend who could put up a thousand dollars' bail—_he_ could go free, to hire his lawyers, look up his witnesses, and fight his case in the open; but a poor man—he must lay his condemned carcass in jail and keep it there while the law went on its way. Day by day now the prisoners went to Yuma to serve their time, or passed out into the world. But were those who passed out innocent? The law said so, for it set them free. And yet they were white with the deadly pallor of the prison, their hands were weak from inactivity, and their minds poisoned by the vile company of yeggs; they had lain there in the heat all summer while judges went to the coast and grand jurymen harvested their hay, and after all their suffering, as a last and crowning flaunt, the law had declared them innocent! It had been many days since Pecos had seen the _Voice of Reason_ and he had lost his first enthusiasm for the revolution, but nothing could make him think that this was right. The Law was like his kangaroo court, that travesty which he made more villainous in order to show his scorn; it laid hold upon the innocent and guilty and punished them alike. Only the sturdy fighters, like him, escaped—or the prisoners who had their dollar. That was it—money! And Pecos Dalhart had always been poor.