Had Loring overheard a conversation which took place at Mr. Cameron’s table the day before Iverach’s return to the East, he would have felt his affection for that gentleman still more increased. The conversation had turned upon the types of men in camp. Iverach’s estimate of them had been as disparaging as theirs of him. The only men with whom he had come in contact had annoyed him as having no place in his neatly constructed world. “Cheap independence” was the phrase that he had used to describe their manner. He had good cause to know this independence for one day he had addressed McKay in a rather lofty fashion, and what McKay had said in return could only be constructed from a careful and diligent reading of the unexpurgated parts of all the most lurid books in the world combined. The retort had been worthy of a territory where the championship swearing belt is held by one who can swear between syllables. His remarks had reflected on Iverach’s parentage on the male and female sides, it had enlarged on his past, expatiated on his probable future, dilated upon his present. The pleasantest of the places that awaited him, according to McKay, was hotter than Tombstone in August. His looks and character had been described in a way that had surpassed even McKay’s fertile imagination. Iverach had always imagined that he would fight a man for using such language to him; yet for some reason he had not hastened to express offense. He was not a coward; but he was not adventurous nor easily aroused to anger when it might have unpleasant results. Consequently to-day, when he finished his remarks about the men whom he had seen by observing that they were “the scum of the earth,” he was guilty of no conscious exaggeration.
Mr. Cameron paid no attention to his cousin’s remarks. He had rarely found them rewarding and therefore with his usual Scotch economy he declined to waste interest upon them. Jean, however, for some reason took the trouble to continue the discussion.
“Have you met a man named Loring, one of the hoist engineers?” she asked quietly.
Iverach looked up suddenly. “Loring? What is his first name?”
“Stephen.”
“I have not met him here; but if he is the man I think he is, I happen to have heard something of him in the East. A friend of his asked me to keep an eye out for him if I came to any of the camps in Arizona. In fact, he told me to keep two eyes open for him, one to find him with, and the other to look out for him after I had found him. He intimated that Loring was not a reliable character, to say the least.”
“A friend of his, did you say?”
“I judged that he had been at one time, but from the trend of his conversation his friendship must have been a thing of the dim past. Among other pleasant things about Loring he told me that—”
“Did he say anything about his ability as a hoist engineer? That, I think, is the only thing with which we are concerned here,” interrupted Jean. “You know, Archie, there is a proverb to the effect that ‘a man’s past is his own.’”