"Drink," said the old man affectionately. He had risen to his feet, and now stood facing the Swede.
There was a silence. Then again Scully said: "Drink!"
The Swede laughed wildly. He grabbed the bottle, put it to his mouth, and as his lips curled absurdly around the opening and his throat worked, he kept his glance, burning with hatred, upon the old man"s face.
IV
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 ent.i.tle 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 h.e.l.l."
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 att.i.tude, 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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns.
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 tw.a.n.g and idiom, and sc.r.a.ps of curiously formal diction taken from the story-books and newspapers, He now hurled a strange ma.s.s 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 baccha.n.a.l. 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.