The stranger turned out to be a young cousin of Mr. Cameron’s, ostensibly in camp to see “western life”; but Stephen had his own opinion as to that. In a week Loring disliked the cousin, in a fortnight he loathed him, and all without ever having exchanged a word with the dapper youth. A man who by necessity is compelled to wear a flannel shirt and trousers frayed by tucking within high boots, is always prone to consider a better dressed man as dapper. For a week Stephen had not had a chance to speak with Miss Cameron. The cousin, “Archibald Iverach,” as the letters which Loring saw at the post-office indicated to be his name, may not have been intentionally responsible; but to his shadow-like attendance on Jean, Loring attributed the result and accordingly prayed for his departure. “To be sure he is her guest; but that is no reason why he should have too good a time,” he reflected gloomily. “She must be enjoying his visit or she would not keep him so long.” 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.