In a tragic example of situational irony, the guests and staff of the hotel all assume that the Swede wrongly accused Johnnie of cheating at cards when, it turns out, Johnnie did cheat. This situation is both ironic and tragic because, by the time the cowboy—and readers—learn that the Swede is innocent, he is already dead, having been killed in a fight after fleeing the hotel.
The irony of this big reveal comes across in the following conversation between the Easterner and the cowboy at the end of the story:
“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!”
“Johnnie,” said the cowboy, blankly. There was a minute of silence, and then he said, robustly, “Why, no. 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.”
The cowboy’s reaction to this news mirrors the reaction of readers—shock and confusion, as they did not see it coming. The cowboy repeats Johnnie’s name “blankly,” goes silent, and then shifts into denying and minimizing the truth because he doesn’t want to accept it. His resistance to believing the Easterner comes from a place of guilt—he doesn’t want to believe that he had misjudged the situation and indirectly contributed to the Swede’s death.
