What is the story all about?

“The Blue Hotel,” is one of Crane’s better-known stories.
It explores a situation that was real in frontier days and still real in many areas of
life—violence precipitated by affronts to personal honor. Each of the major characters
is amply portrayed, and except for the Cowboy they are also rounded. The Swede is guided
by expectation, but he changes because he believes that he is above the forces of
destruction he earlier fears. Scully is an entrepreneur who values his reputation above
all else, but he changes because he consents to the fight of Johnnie with one of his
guests. The Easterner is an observer, who does not tell the truth because he seems to
have a strain of cowardice; however, he changes because he is the one whose discourse in
paragraph 265, indicates a strong sense of guilt about his role in the death of the
Swede. The cowboy is bigoted, and is certainly not huge on intelligence, as is indicated
by his concluding statement in paragraph 266. He has listened to what the Easterner has
told him, but he does not recognize that he has been involved in the death in any
way.