I
The Palace Hotel at Fort Romper was painted a light blue, a shade that
is on the legs of a kind of heron, causing the bird to declare its
position against any background. The Palace Hotel, then, was always
screaming and howling in a way that made the dazzling winter landscape
of Nebraska seem only a gray swampish hush. It stood alone on the
prairie, and when the snow was falling the town two hundred yards away
was not visible. But when the traveller alighted at the railway
station he was obliged to pass the Palace Hotel before he could come
upon the company of low clapboard houses which composed Fort Romper,
and it was not to be thought that any traveller could pass the Palace
Hotel without looking at it. Pat Scully, the proprietor, had proved
himself a master of strategy when he chose his paints. It is true that
on clear days, when the great trans-continental expresses, long lines
of swaying Pullmans, swept through Fort Romper, passengers were
overcome at the sight, and the cult that knows the brown-reds and the
subdivisions of the dark greens of the East expressed shame, pity,
horror, in a laugh. But to the citizens of this prairie town and to
the people who would naturally stop there, Pat Scully had performed a
feat. With this opulence and splendor, these creeds, classes,
egotisms, that streamed through Romper on the rails day after day,
they had no color in common.
As if the displayed delights of such a blue hotel were not
sufficiently enticing, it was Scully's habit to go every morning and
evening to meet the leisurely trains that stopped at Romper and work
his seductions upon any man that he might see wavering, gripsack in
hand.
One morning, when a snow-crusted engine dragged its long string of
freight cars and its one passenger coach to the station, Scully
performed the marvel of catching three men. One was a shaky and
quick-eyed Swede, with a great shining cheap valise; one was a tall
bronzed cowboy, who was on his way to a ranch near the Dakota line;
one was a little silent man from the East, who didn't look it, and
didn't announce it. Scully practically made them prisoners. He was so
nimble and merry and kindly that each probably felt it would be the
height of brutality to try to escape. They trudged off over the
creaking board sidewalks in the wake of the eager little Irishman. He
wore a heavy fur cap squeezed tightly down on his head. It caused his
two red ears to stick out stiffly, as if they were made of tin.
At last, Scully, elaborately, with boisterous hospitality, conducted
them through the portals of the blue hotel. The room which they
entered was small. It seemed to be merely a proper temple for an
enormous stove, which, in the centre, was humming with godlike
violence. At various points on its surface the iron had become
luminous and glowed yellow from the heat. Beside the stove Scully's
son Johnnie was playing High-Five with an old farmer who had whiskers
both gray and sandy. They were quarrelling. Frequently the old farmer
turned his face towards a box of sawdust--colored brown from tobacco
juice--that was behind the stove, and spat with an air of great
impatience and irritation. With a loud flourish of words Scully
destroyed the game of cards, and bustled his son up-stairs with part
of the baggage of the new guests. He himself conducted them to three
basins of the coldest water in the world. The cowboy and the Easterner
burnished themselves fiery-red with this water, until it seemed to be
some kind of a metal polish. The Swede, however, merely dipped his
fingers gingerly and with trepidation. It was notable that throughout
this series of small ceremonies the three travellers were made to feel
that Scully was very benevolent. He was conferring great favors upon
them. He handed the towel from one to the other with an air of
philanthropic impulse.
Afterwards they went to the first room, and, sitting about the stove,
listened to Scully's officious clamor at his daughters, who were
preparing the mid-day meal. They reflected in the silence of
experienced men who tread carefully amid new people. Nevertheless, the
old farmer, stationary, invincible in his chair near the warmest part
of the stove, turned his face from the sawdust box frequently and
addressed a glowing commonplace to the strangers. Usually he was
answered in short but adequate sentences by either the cowboy or the
Easterner. The Swede said nothing. He seemed to be occupied in making
furtive estimates of each man in the room. One might have thought that
he had the sense of silly suspicion which comes to guilt. He resembled
a badly frightened man.
Later, at dinner, he spoke a little, addressing his conversation
entirely to Scully. He volunteered that he had come from New York,
where for ten years he had worked as a tailor. These facts seemed to
strike Scully as fascinating, and afterwards he volunteered that he
had lived at Romper for fourteen years. The Swede asked about the
crops and the price of labor. He seemed barely to listen to Scully's
extended replies. His eyes continued to rove from man to man.
Finally, with a laugh and a wink, he said that some of these Western
communities were very dangerous; and after his statement he
straightened his legs under the table, tilted his head, and laughed
again, loudly. It was plain that the demonstration had no meaning to
the others. They looked at him wondering and in silence.