# The Shooting of Dan McGrew explained — Songs of a Sourdough > Chapter companion for Songs of a Sourdough by Robert W. Service. ## What happens In the Malamute saloon, a mysterious stranger stumbles in from the bitter cold and begins playing the piano with haunting skill, evoking the loneliness and despair of the Yukon. His music stirs a violent confrontation with Dangerous Dan McGrew, ending in a deadly shootout. The narrator hints that the lady known as Lou may have betrayed the stranger. ## Themes in this chapter ### Loneliness and Despair The stranger's music expresses the gnawing hunger of lonely men for home and love, and the despair of a heart that has been looted. ### Gold Rush and Greed The stranger's poke of gold dust and Lou's theft of it highlight the greed and betrayal that pervaded the gold rush. ## Character check-ins ### Dangerous Dan McGrew Sitting at a solo game in the saloon, he is the last to drink to the stranger's health and is later shot dead in the dark. ### Lou Watching Dan's luck and later the stranger, she is implied to have betrayed the stranger by kissing him and stealing his poke. ### the stranger A miner fresh from the creeks, he stumbles into the saloon, plays a powerful piano piece, and confronts Dan McGrew before the shootout. ## Key lines > Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear ; With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold Have you ever been alone in the vast wilderness under a bright moon, surrounded by silent icy mountains, with only the howl of a wolf for company, half-dead and desperate for gold? _The narrator describes the profound isolation and obsession that define life in the Klondike._ > But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means; For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above; But oh! so cramful of cosy joy, and crowned with a woman’s love It's the deep longing of lonely men for a home, a warm fireside, and the love of a woman. _The stranger's music evokes a universal yearning for domestic comfort and love._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/songs_of_a_sourdough_se/chapters/the-shooting-of-dan-mcgrew - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/songs_of_a_sourdough_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/songs_of_a_sourdough_se/chapters