Pat Scully
Scully is the shrew proprietor of the hotel. Like some sort of predatory spider seeking victims, he makes a habit of greeting disembarking passengers when the train arrives in town. This particular night the web is going to be populated by a rather unusual trio of flies briefly calling the out-of-place blue Palace Hotel home.
Swede
One of the passengers is referred to only by the country of his origin. Swede exhibits a nervous quiet bordering on paranoia for much of the story. Gradually, his paranoia about everyone else spreads to everyone else who direct it toward him. His increasingly strange behavior is analyzed by one of the other guests fresh off the train as resulting from reading too much “dime novels” mythologizing the West.
The Easterner
Twice called Mr. Blanc, this character is otherwise known only as the Easterner. Some have speculated that he is the writer’s alter ego. His relative and consistent silence indicate the role of observer who might later be the person to go on write the story. In addition, it is he who makes the non-clinical diagnosis that the Swede suffers from an infusion of too much romantic imagination on the part of writers.
The Cowboy
The third passenger becoming a fly in the strange web constructed inside the hotel is notable for looking exactly like one of those cowboy characters romanticized in dime novels. His brief foray into the twilight zone of the Palace occurs as he is making his way for a job at the ranch along the Nebraska/Dakota border. Other than his tall, bronzed appearance, however, he exhibits few characteristics typically associated with cowboy mythology.
The Gambler
This man is a resident of the community who enjoys a rather elevated reputation rising high above the speculative expectations of one engaged in his particular line of work. An altercation of seemingly little consequence with Swede is the turning point of the story.
Johnny Scully
The son of the hotel proprietor who occasionally moves luggage from one place to another, but seems to spend most of his time inviting guests to join in a game of cards. The Swede accuses him of cheating. The Swede was right.
The Barkeeper
The barkeeper becomes yet another character with whom the prickly Swede negatively interacts. The almost somnambulistic saloon owner appears to want little more from life than to be left alone while the Swede appears intent on preventing just that one very thing. Violence ensues and the story becomes one of the first in American fiction to implicate the server of alcohol in the collective guilt associated with doing just that very thing.
