CHAPTER VI.

"The Golden Rule Hotel."


It required some moments before the boys became accustomed to the
strange sights which spread themselves out before their wondering eyes.
The speed and the clanging of the horse-drawn street cars, the shouts of
the teamsters, the gas lamps, which now as darkness was approaching were
lit, while the brilliantly illuminated saloons, the gayly decorated
windows of the stores and shops, in fact everything seemed to them a far
different world from the one they had just left behind them upon the
bleak prairie.

They walked about the streets until they felt that they must find a
shelter for the night, but being afraid to accost one of the many
strangers who rushed past them and who not even deigned to cast a glance
at the open-mouthed lads who marvelled at the people's haste to be gone,
they tackled a gaudily uniformed policeman. "Yes, my lads," the
good-natured guardian of the peace explained to them, after he had noted
their red-bandana wrapped bundles and that their suits were somewhat the
worse for their three days riding in the box car, "you of course do not
wish to stop at the Windsor, the highest classed hotel in Minneapolis,
but I think that I know the proper place for you, it's the 'Golden Rule
Hotel', the best place in our city for lads like you." And then he
directed them so they could easily find the hotel, and as a parting
word, told them that it was a most reasonably priced place, as they
charged only fifteen cents for a night's lodging, and then finished his
fatherly advice by adding, that every cent saved meant a cent gained.