Stephen Crane

“ Beyond an occasional unwary traveler, who came by rail, this gambler was supposed to prey solely upon reckless and senile farmers, who, when flush with good crops, drove into town in all the pride and confidence of an absolutely invulnerable stupidity. Hearing at times in circuitous fashion of the despoilment of such a farmer, the important men of Romper invariably laughed in contempt of the victim, and if they thought of the wolf at all, it was with a kind of pride at the knowledge that he would never dare think of attacking their wisdom and courage. ”

“ One viewed the existence of man then as a marvel, and conceded a glamour of wonder to these lice which were caused to cling to a whirling, fire-smote, ice-locked, disease-stricken, space-lost bulb. The conceit of man was explained by this storm to be the very engine of life. One was a coxcomb not to die in it. However, the Swede found a saloon.
In front of it an indomitable red light was burning, and the snow-flakes were made blood-color as they flew through the circumscribed territory of the lamp's shining. The Swede pushed open the door of the saloon and entered. ”

“ Frequently the old farmer turned his face toward 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 upstairs 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. ”

“ I'll make you!" The Swede had grasped the gambler frenziedly at the throat, and was dragging him from his chair. The other men sprang up. The barkeeper dashed around the corner of his bar. There was a great tumult, and then was seen a long blade in the hand of the gambler. It shot forward, and a human body, this citadel of virtue, wisdom, power, was pierced as easily as if it had been a melon. The Swede fell with a cry of supreme astonishment.
The prominent merchants and the district-attorney must have at once tumbled out of the place backward. ”

“ Scully threw open the door. "Well, come on," he said. Instantly a terrific wind caused the flame of the lamp to struggle at its wick, while a puff of black smoke sprang from the chimney-top. The stove was in mid-current of the blast, and its voice swelled to equal the roar of the storm. Some of the scarred and bedabbled cards were caught up from the floor and dashed helplessly against the further wall. The men lowered their heads and plunged into the tempest as into a sea. ”

“ Every sin is the result of a collaboration. We, five of us, have collaborated in the murder of this Swede. Usually there are from a dozen to forty women really involved in every murder, but in this case it seems to be only five men -- you, I, Johnnie, old Scully, and that fool of an unfortunate gambler came merely as a culmination, the apex of a human movement, and gets all the punishment. ”

“ 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 -- -- -- -- -!"
The cowboy was telling the Swede: "Quit, now! Quit, d'ye hear -- "
The screams of the Swede never ceased. "He did cheat! I saw him! I saw him -- "
As for the Easterner, he was importuning in a voice that was not heeded. "Wait a moment, can't you? Oh, wait a moment. What's the good of a fight over a game of cards? ”

“ Why, when he said that Johnnie was cheatin' and acted like such a jackass? And then in the saloon he fairly walked up to git hurt?" With these arguments the cowboy browbeat the Easterner and reduced him to rage.
"You're a fool!" cried the Easterner viciously. "You're a bigger jackass than the Swede by a million majority. Now let me tell you one thing. Let me tell you something. Listen! Johnnie was cheating!" ”

“ Much has been written of the beauties of Natal, with its shores washed by the Indian Ocean, its rich soil, luxuriant vegetation and noble forests. When Pieter Retief first saw it from the Drakensberg Mountains, it was under the despotic rule of the Zulu chief Dingaan, who had succeeded Tshaka, the "Napoleon of Africa," the slayer of a million human beings. A few Englishmen, who were allowed to live at the port, gladly welcomed the emigrants, and took them to Dingaan's capital, called Umkungunhloon, acting as guides and interpreters. ”

“ It is irrefutable that in all affairs outside of his business, in all matters that occur eternally and commonly between man and man, this thieving card-player was so generous, so just, so moral, that, in a contest, he could have put to flight the consciences of nine-tenths of the citizens of Romper. ”

“ But he might have been jeering the dead. The three men were immovable and silent, staring with glassy eyes at the stove.
The Swede opened the door and passed into the storm, giving one derisive glance backward at the still group.
As soon as the door was closed, Scully and the cowboy leaped to their feet and began to curse. They trampled to and fro, waving their arms and smashing into the air with their fists. "Oh, but that was a hard minute!" wailed Scully. "That was a hard minute! Him there leerin' and scoffin'! One bang at his nose was worth forty dollars to me that minute! ”

“ Scully wheeled sternly upon his son. "What is this, Johnnie?"
The lad had grown sullen. "Damned if I know," he answered. "I can't make no sense to it." He began to shuffle the cards, fluttering them together with an angry snap. "He says a good many men have been killed in this room, or something like that. And he says he's goin' to be killed here too. I don't know what ails him. He's crazy, I shouldn't wonder."
Scully then looked for explanation to the cowboy, but the cowboy simply shrugged his shoulders.
"Kill you?" said Scully again to the Swede. "Kill you? Man, you're off your nut." ”

“ The game was only for fun."
"Fun or not," said the Easterner, "Johnnie was cheating. I saw him. I know it. I saw him. And I refused to stand up and be a man. I let the Swede fight it out alone. And you -- you were simply puffing around the place and wanting to fight. And then old Scully himself! We are all in it! This poor gambler isn't even a noun. He is kind of an adverb. ”

“ Afterward they went to the first room, and, sitting about the stove, listened to Scully's officious clamor at his daughters, who were preparing the midday 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. ”

“ The Boers now felt that no security existed for life or property on the frontier; all the support of the British government was given -- with a philanthropy stimulated by the missionaries -- to the black races as against the Boer farmers. The feeling had now become general among them that they must escape British rule at any cost. They left their homes and cultivated fields and gardens -- the homes of over a century's growth -- and started into the wilds. Purchases of the vacated property were not frequent; a house sometimes was sold for an ox ”

“ The cowboy volunteered to become the partner of Johnnie, and they all then turned to ask the Swede to throw in his lot with the little Easterner. He asked some questions about the game, and learning that it wore many names, and that he had played it when it was under an alias, he accepted the invitation. He strode toward the men nervously, as if he expected to be assaulted. ”

“ IX MONTHS later, the cowboy was frying pork over the stove of a little ranch near the Dakota line, when there was a quick thud of hoofs outside, and, presently, the Easterner entered with the letters and the papers.
"Well," said the Easterner at once, "the chap that killed the Swede has got three years. Wasn't much, was it?"
"He has? Three years?" The cowboy poised his pan of pork, while he ruminated upon the news. "Three years. That ain't much."
"No. It was a light sentence," replied the Easterner as he unbuckled his spurs. "Seems there was a good deal of sympathy for him in Romper." ”

“ There is the same thrift which is often extreme parsimony, combined with great hospitality, the same dogged obstinacy, and the same delight in overreaching in all matters of business and bargain-driving. Moreover, their religious ideals bear the strongest resemblance one to the other. In his character as a colonist the Boer certainly showed magnificent qualities; he could work and endure and fight. ”

“ I will go away. I will leave this house. Never mind, Mr. Scully, never mind. I will go away."
"You will not go 'way," said Scully. "You will not go 'way until I hear the reason of this business. If anybody has troubled you I will take care of him. This is my house. You are under my roof, and I will not allow any peaceable man to be troubled here. He cast a terrible eye upon Johnnie, the cowboy, and the Easterner.
"Never mind, Mr. Scully; never mind. I will go 'way. I do not wish to be killed." The Swede moved toward the door, which opened upon the stairs. ”

“ But a scrutiny of the group would not have enabled an observer to pick the gambler from the men of more reputable pursuits. He was, in fact, a man so delicate in manner, when among people of fair class, and so judicious in his choice of victims, that in the strictly masculine part of the town's life he had come to be explicitly trusted and admired. ”

“ Now that the "trekkers" had freed South Africa from the destructive Zulu power, and had driven the Matabele away, they wished to settle in Natal, and rest from the nomadic existence that had so long been theirs. But the British now came forward to hunt them on again. The Governor of Cape Colony, Sir George Napier, proclaimed that "the occupation of Natal by the emigrants was unwarrantable," and directed that "all arms and ammunition should be taken from them, and the port closed against trade." ”

“ It stood alone on the prairie, and when the snow was falling the town two hundred yards away was not visible. But when the traveler alighted at the railway station he was obliged to pass the Palace Hotel before he could come upon the company of low clap-board houses which composed Fort Romper, and it was not to be thought that any traveler 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. ”

“ But the Boers, with their powerful "roers," or elephant-guns, kept such a rapid and skilful fire, while the women kept the spare guns reloaded, that the Matabele were forced to retire, but they drove with them all the cattle of the party. They left one hundred and fifty-five dead, and one thousand one hundred of their spears were afterward picked up.
The emigrants in the laager were left without the means of transportation, and very little food, while they had lost forty-six of their people. ”

“ Besides, it was popular that this gambler had a real wife, and two real children in a neat cottage in a suburb, where he led an exemplary home life, and when any one even suggested a discrepancy in his character, the crowd immediately vociferated descriptions of this virtuous family circle. Then men who led exemplary home lives, and men who did not lead exemplary home lives, all subsided in a bunch, remarking that there was nothing more to be said. ”

“ Johnnie, however, addressed his parent in an aside. "Why don't you license somebody to kick you downstairs?" 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. ”

“ In 1834, the first band of emigrants left the colony -- forty-five men under a leader named Louis Triechard, from the division of Albany. He was a violent-tempered man, and so loudly opposed to the government that Col. Harry Smith offered a reward of five hundred cattle for his apprehension. He left then at once, being of the class of Boers on the frontier who lived in their wagons, as though they were ships at sea, and had no settled habitation. ”

“ A change had come over the Celtic visage of the old man. He now seemed all eagerness; his eyes glowed.
"We'll let them fight," he answered stalwartly. "I can't put up with it any longer. I've stood this damned Swede till I'm sick. We'll let them fight."
VI THE men prepared to go out of doors. The Easterner was so nervous that he had great difficulty in getting his arms into the sleeves of his new leather-coat. As the cowboy drew his fur-cap down over his ears his hands trembled. In fact, Johnnie and old Scully were the only ones who displayed no agitation. ”

“ Read, missionaries of the London society, who had taken black wives, and announced themselves champions of the black race against the white, had sent to England reports of a number of murders and outrages said to have been committed upon Hottentots by the Dutch colonists. By order of the British government fifty-eight white men and women were put upon their trial for these crimes in 1812, and over a thousand witnesses, black and white, were called to give evidence. ”