After the departure of Scully the three men, with the card-board still
upon their knees, preserved for a long time an astounded silence. Then
Johnnie said: "That's the dod-dangest Swede I ever see."
"He ain't no Swede," said the cowboy, scornfully.
"Well, what is he then?" cried Johnnie. "What is he then?"
"It's my opinion," replied the cowboy deliberately, "he's some kind of
a Dutchman." It was a venerable custom of the country to entitle as
Swedes all light-haired men who spoke with a heavy tongue. In
consequence the idea of the cowboy was not without its daring. "Yes,
sir," he repeated. "It's my opinion this feller is some kind of a
Dutchman."
"Well, he says he's a Swede, anyhow," muttered Johnnie, sulkily. He
turned to the Easterner: "What do you think, Mr. Blanc?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied the Easterner.
"Well, what do you think makes him act that way?" asked the cowboy.
"Why, he's frightened." The Easterner knocked his pipe against a rim
of the stove. "He's clear frightened out of his boots."
"What at?" cried Johnnie and cowboy together.
The Easterner reflected over his answer.
"What at?" cried the others again.
"Oh, I don't know, but it seems to me this man has been reading
dime-novels, and he thinks he's right out in the middle of it--the
shootin' and stabbin' and all."
"But," said the cowboy, deeply scandalized, "this ain't Wyoming, ner
none of them places. This is Nebrasker."
"Yes," added Johnnie, "an' why don't he wait till he gits _out West?_"
The travelled Easterner laughed. "It isn't different there even--not
in these days. But he thinks he's right in the middle of hell."
Johnnie and the cowboy mused long.
"It's awful funny," remarked Johnnie at last.
"Yes," said the cowboy. "This is a queer game. I hope we don't git
snowed in, because then we'd have to stand this here man bein' around
with us all the time. That wouldn't be no good."
"I wish pop would throw him out," said Johnnie.
Presently they heard a loud stamping on the stairs, accompanied by
ringing jokes in the voice of old Scully, and laughter, evidently from
the Swede. The men around the stove stared vacantly at each other.
"Gosh!" said the cowboy. The door flew open, and old Scully, flushed
and anecdotal, came into the room. He was jabbering at the Swede, who
followed him, laughing bravely. It was the entry of two roisterers
from a banquet-hall.
"Come now," said Scully sharply to the three seated men, "move up and
give us a chance at the stove." The cowboy and the Easterner
obediently sidled their chairs to make room for the new-comers.
Johnnie, however, simply arranged himself in a more indolent attitude,
and then remained motionless.
"Come! Git over, there," said Scully.
"Plenty of room on the other side of the stove," said Johnnie.
"Do you think we want to sit in the draught?" roared the father.
But the Swede here interposed with a grandeur of confidence. "No, no.
Let the boy sit where he likes," he cried in a bullying voice to the
father.
"All right! All right!" said Scully, deferentially. The cowboy and the
Easterner exchanged glances of wonder.
The five chairs were formed in a crescent about one side of the stove.
The Swede began to talk; he talked arrogantly, profanely, angrily.
Johnnie, the cowboy, and the Easterner maintained a morose silence,
while old Scully appeared to be receptive and eager, breaking in
constantly with sympathetic ejaculations.
Finally the Swede announced that he was thirsty. He moved in his
chair, and said that he would go for a drink of water.
"I'll git it for you," cried Scully at once.
"No," said the Swede, contemptuously. "I'll get it for myself." He
arose and stalked with the air of an owner off into the executive
parts of the hotel.
As soon as the Swede was out of hearing Scully sprang to his feet and
whispered intensely to the others: "Up-stairs he thought I was tryin'
to poison 'im."
"Say," said Johnnie, "this makes me sick. Why don't you throw 'im out
in the snow?"
"Why, he's all right now," declared Scully. "It was only that he was
from the East, and he thought this was a tough place. That's all. He's
all right now."
The cowboy looked with admiration upon the Easterner. "You were
straight," he said. "You were on to that there Dutchman."
"Well," said Johnnie to his father, "he may be all right now, but I
don't see it. Other time he was scared, but now he's too fresh."
Scully's speech was always a combination of Irish brogue and idiom,
Western twang and idiom, and scraps of curiously formal diction taken
from the story-books and newspapers, He now hurled a strange mass of
language at the head of his son. "What do I keep? What do I keep? What
do I keep?" he demanded, in a voice of thunder. He slapped his knee
impressively, to indicate that he himself was going to make reply, and
that all should heed. "I keep a hotel," he shouted. "A hotel, do you
mind? A guest under my roof has sacred privileges. He is to be
intimidated by none. Not one word shall he hear that would prejudice
him in favor of goin' away. I'll not have it. There's no place in this
here town where they can say they iver took in a guest of mine because
he was afraid to stay here." He wheeled suddenly upon the cowboy and
the Easterner. "Am I right?"
"Yes, Mr. Scully," said the cowboy, "I think you're right."
"Yes, Mr. Scully," said the Easterner, "I think you're right."
V
At six-o'clock supper, the Swede fizzed like a fire-wheel. He
sometimes seemed on the point of bursting into riotous song, and in
all his madness he was encouraged by old Scully. The Easterner was
incased in reserve; the cowboy sat in wide-mouthed amazement,
forgetting to eat, while Johnnie wrathily demolished great plates of
food. The daughters of the house, when they were obliged to replenish
the biscuits, approached as warily as Indians, and, having succeeded
in their purpose, fled with ill-concealed trepidation. The Swede
domineered the whole feast, and he gave it the appearance of a cruel
bacchanal. He seemed to have grown suddenly taller; he gazed, brutally
disdainful, into every face. His voice rang through the room. Once
when he jabbed out harpoon-fashion with his fork to pinion a biscuit,
the weapon nearly impaled the hand of the Easterner which had been
stretched quietly out for the same biscuit.
After supper, as the men filed towards the other room, the Swede smote
Scully ruthlessly on the shoulder. "Well, old boy, that was a good,
square meal." Johnnie looked hopefully at his father; he knew that
shoulder was tender from an old fall; and, indeed, it appeared for a
moment as if Scully was going to flame out over the matter, but in the
end he smiled a sickly smile and remained silent. The others
understood from his manner that he was admitting his responsibility
for the Swede's new view-point.
Johnnie, however, addressed his parent in an aside. "Why don't you
license somebody to kick you down-stairs?" Scully scowled darkly by
way of reply.
When they were gathered about the stove, the Swede insisted on another
game of High Five. Scully gently deprecated the plan at first, but the
Swede turned a wolfish glare upon him. The old man subsided, and the
Swede canvassed the others. In his tone there was always a great
threat. The cowboy and the Easterner both remarked indifferently that
they would play. Scully said that he would presently have to go to
meet the 6.58 train, and so the Swede turned menacingly upon Johnnie.
For a moment their glances crossed like blades, and then Johnnie
smiled and said, "Yes, I'll play."
They formed a square, with the little board on their knees. The
Easterner and the Swede were again partners. As the play went on, it
was noticeable that the cowboy was not board-whacking as usual.
Meanwhile, Scully, near the lamp, had put on his spectacles and, with
an appearance curiously like an old priest, was reading a newspaper.
In time he went out to meet the 6.58 train, and, despite his
precautions, a gust of polar wind whirled into the room as he opened
the door. Besides scattering the cards, it dulled the players to the
marrow. The Swede cursed frightfully. When Scully returned, his
entrance disturbed a cosey and friendly scene. The Swede again cursed.
But presently they were once more intent, their heads bent forward and
their hands moving swiftly. The Swede had adopted the fashion of
board-whacking.
Scully took up his paper and for a long time remained immersed in
matters which were extraordinarily remote from him. The lamp burned
badly, and once he stopped to adjust the wick. The newspaper, as he
turned from page to page, rustled with a slow and comfortable sound.
Then suddenly he heard three terrible words: "You are cheatin'!"
Such scenes often prove that there can be little of dramatic import in
environment. Any room can present a tragic front; any room can be
comic. This little den was now hideous as a torture-chamber. The new
faces of the men themselves had changed it upon the instant. The Swede
held a huge fist in front of Johnnie's face, while the latter looked
steadily over it into the blazing orbs of his accuser. The Easterner
had grown pallid; the cowboy's jaw had dropped in that expression of
bovine amazement which was one of his important mannerisms. After the
three words, the first sound in the room was made by Scully's paper as
it floated forgotten to his feet. His spectacles had also fallen from
his nose, but by a clutch he had saved them in air. His hand, grasping
the spectacles, now remained poised awkwardly and near his shoulder.
He stared at the card-players.
Probably the silence was while a second elapsed. Then, if the floor
had been suddenly twitched out from under the men they could not have
moved quicker. The five had projected themselves headlong towards a
common point. It happened that Johnnie, in rising to hurl himself upon
the Swede, had stumbled slightly because of his curiously instinctive
care for the cards and the board. The loss of the moment allowed time
for the arrival of Scully, and also allowed the cowboy time to give
the Swede a great push which sent him staggering back. The men found
tongue together, and hoarse shouts of rage, appeal, or fear burst from
every throat. The cowboy pushed and jostled feverishly at the Swede,
and the Easterner and Scully clung wildly to Johnnie; but, through the
smoky air, above the swaying bodies of the peace-compellers, the eyes
of the two warriors ever sought each other in glances of challenge
that were at once hot and steely.
Of course the board had been overturned, and now the whole company of
cards was scattered over the floor, where the boots of the men
trampled the fat and painted kings and queens as they gazed with their
silly eyes at the war that was waging above them.
Scully's voice was dominating the yells. "Stop now? Stop, I say! Stop,
now--"
Johnnie, as he struggled to burst through the rank formed by Scully
and the Easterner, was crying, "Well, he says I cheated! He says I
cheated! I won't allow no man to say I cheated! If he says I cheated,
he's a ------ ------!"