On the way over the bridge he talked of the town.
“It’s a live place,” he said, “we are getting people in here.”
“Look at that!” he exclaimed, chewing at the cigar and pointing to the waterfall that foamed and roared almost under the bridge. “There’s a lot of power there and where there’s power there will be a city.”
At Ed’s hotel some twenty men sat about a long low office. They were, for the most part, middle-aged working men and sat in silence reading and smoking pipes. At a table pushed against the wall a bald-headed young man with a scar on his cheek played solitaire with a greasy pack of cards, and in front of him and sitting in a chair tilted against the wall a sullen-faced boy idly watched the game. When the three men came into the office the boy dropped his chair to the floor and stared at Ed who stared back at him. It was as though a contest of some sort went on between them. A tall neatly-dressed woman, with a brisk manner and pale, inexpressive, hard blue eyes, stood back of a little combined desk and cigar case at the end of the room, and as the three walked toward her she looked from Ed to the sullen-faced boy and then again at Ed. Sam concluded she was a woman bent on having her own way. She had that air.
“This is my wife,” said Ed, introducing Sam with a wave of his hand and passing around the end of the desk to stand by her side.
Ed’s wife twirled the hotel register about facing Sam, nodded her head, and then, leaning over the desk, bestowed a quick kiss upon the leathery cheek of the old carpenter.
Sam and the old man found a place in chairs along the wall and sat down among the silent men. The old man pointed to the boy in the chair beside the card players.
“Their son,” he whispered cautiously.
The boy looked at his mother, who in turn looked steadily at him, and got up from his chair. Back of the desk Ed talked in low tones to his wife. The boy, stopping before Sam and the old man and still looking toward the woman, put out his hand which the old man took. Then, without speaking, he went past the desk and through a doorway, and began noisily climbing a flight of stairs, followed by his mother. As they climbed they berated each other, their voices rising to a high pitch and echoing through the upper part of the house.
Ed, coming across to them, talked to Sam about the assignment of a room, and the men began looking at the stranger; noting his fine clothes, their eyes filled with curiosity.