The next day's trial took place in the square, and all the captives were brought in to watch, and of course many of the Sleeping Bears and Chirikawa came to watch.

For almost everyone, this is an unheard of scenario.

As the chief of the legislative, executive, and judicial trinity, although Ma Whistle had already set up laws and simple judicial procedures, it was the first time that such a large-scale trial had been held.

Amid the crowd's chatter, a total of nine people were tied up in the middle of the square.

More than twenty sleeping bear warriors surrounded them with long knives in their hands, and they didn't say a word. As "bailiffs", they were all selected and stood out in height, adding more solemnity to the trial.

The nine tied men were naturally the prisoners to be tried, namely the Great Chiefs of the Five Tribes and the War Chiefs, as well as the traitor Square Face.

There were eleven of them, but two of them died on the battlefield yesterday.

Most of the nine people were pale, and although they had no concept of trial, they could also feel the solemnity of the atmosphere.

When the sleeping bears saw them, they all cast their disdain: "These incompetent guys actually want to challenge the Apaches!" ”

"Yesterday on the battlefield, they were almost twice as numerous as us, but they were beaten like weeds at the foot of a herd of bison!"

"Today is their day of death, and I think I should bring something over and throw it on this man's head—"

"Silence!" The fighters who maintained order shouted.

In addition to those standing beside the prisoners, there were more than two hundred soldiers and militiamen in the vicinity of the square, especially around the captives, all standing upright and holding muskets in their hands.

The people fell silent.

At the same time, the horse whistle also came out of the chieftain's hall and walked straight to the square, followed by the high priest on a rainy day, and the oak chief of the sky.

The horse whistle sat in the seat belonging to the inquisitor, and the trial officially began.

He first looked at Fang Face, read out his list of indictments, and then asked, "Fang Face, do you plead guilty to the charges I just mentioned?" ”

As he spoke, he motioned to the soldier beside Fang Face, who immediately pulled out the rag that was stuffed in Fang Face's mouth so that he could speak.

"I swear I'm going to take you-" Fang Face scolded directly, but before he could finish his words, his mouth was stuffed with a rag again.

Ma Whistle nodded calmly: "The prisoner voluntarily gave up the opportunity to plead. ”

Then he said: "Fang Face committed four crimes: treason, dividing the tribe, insulting the Great Chief, and inciting the aborigines to fight among themselves...... The facts are clear, the evidence is conclusive, I declare that the traitor is sentenced to death by square face shooting, and it will be executed immediately! ”

"Uhh

The horse whistle continued to try the other prisoners.

Except for the square face, the rest of the people are pure war criminals, and three of them are diehards, and they will naturally end up with death.

Until the object of judgment is the turn of the owl.

"Owl, you listen to the rumors spread by Fang Face, instigate a war among the aborigines, and undermine the unity of the aborigines, do you plead guilty?" The horse whistle looked directly at the owl.

The owl knelt on the ground, lowered his head, and said in a slightly trembling voice: "I confess, I repent...... I shouldn't have been impulsive and aggressive at Sleeping Bear. The aborigines should be united, not attack each other, and as a sinner who destroys the unity of the aborigines, I am willing to accept all punishments! ”

The horse whistle watched the reaction of the people.

In response to the owl's remarks, the sleeping bear people reacted mostly with disdain and disdain. In their opinion, the owl said this is nothing more than greed for life and fear of death, trying to win some sympathy, and this is indeed the case.

When the captured Comanches heard this, their reaction was confusion and anger.

The charge of "inciting an internal war among the aborigines" had been stated several times, and the captives had been translated throughout.

At first, they didn't think so, but when they saw their great chief confessing their sins, they couldn't help but have some vague self-doubts in their hearts: Could it be that I am really participating in an unjust war?

Of course, it was more anger and grievance, and watching the humble gesture of the owl kneeling on the ground and confessing his guilt, the Comanche warriors felt as if they had been betrayed.

Under the watchful eye of the sleeping bear soldiers around them, the captives did not dare to talk much, but their attitude was still not difficult to detect.

This seems to have some effect, Ma Whistle thought to himself.

He looked at the confessed owl, nodded, and continued: "Considering your confessional attitude, and the fact that you were deceived by others, the punishment for you can be mitigated. Accordingly, I declare that the death penalty for the owl is waived and the sentence of 10 years of hard labour is commuted. ”

Although the two had already communicated last night, the owl couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief when he heard this.

When the four people in front of him were sentenced to death in succession, he was distraught for a while, thinking that he was still going to die.

Fortunately, he finally escaped the catastrophe and was exempted from the death penalty.

Without the threat of death, the owl's tense attention was suddenly relaxed, and he finally turned his head to look at the Comanche captives not far away.

From the eyes of the clansmen, he knew that he was probably no longer respected.

The latter prisoners were the same, and they simply pleaded guilty to the law, and as a result, they were forgiven, and they were only sentenced to ten years of hard labor.

The so-called 10-year labor refers to compulsory work such as cultivating farmland and building buildings, which does not really last for 10 years, and is paid to a certain extent.

Of course, the Indians were not aware of this, and in their psychological expectation that servitude was slavery, just as whites did to blacks or Comanches to Utahs.

At the end of the trial, the soldiers began to execute four condemned prisoners, which made it impossible to watch casually, at least children under the age of 12.

Only the captives were brought over to watch so that they could know what was going on with the die-hards.

Fortunately for the four condemned prisoners, they were not executed by hanging, which was the most common in this era, but by shooting.

Unfortunately, the horse whistle has also devised a unique process to enhance the deterrent effect of the execution - shooting in random order.

He had four prisoners kneel on the ground in a row, with an executioner standing behind him, pointing a gun at the back of their heads, and then shooting them one by one in random order.

There is no doubt that in the era before lethal injection, direct shooting in the back of the head was a fairly civilized method of execution.

All it takes is one bullet to kill instantly.

But this random sequence of shooting still caused the psychology of the four death row prisoners to almost collapse, no, three to be exact.

The first person to be shot did not have time to linger in fear for long, and buckshot quickly ended his life.

The last three were not so lucky, they knew that they were going to die, but they couldn't be sure how many gunshots they had fallen to, and each shot was a huge psychological torture.

Man's love and obsession with his own life is so strong. In the last few minutes of their lives, they drained all the cold sweat and even urine, and without the rag in their mouths, they don't know what kind of sound they would make.