The boss snorted contemptuously. "Huh! He done you dirt onct didn't he?"
"Yes, but——"
"He throw'd in with these here ornery scum that ain't neither men, fish, nor potatoes, didn't he?"
"Yes, but——"
"'Yes' is all right—an' they ain't no 'buts' about it. I had him last winter, an' he wasn't no 'count. I thought they might be some good in him so I hired him ag'in this fall to give him another chanct, but he's rotten-hearted an' twisty-grained, an' from root to top-branch they ain't the worth of a lath in his hide. He's a natural-borned crook. If it was only hisself I wouldn't mind it, but a crook is dangerous to other folks—not to hisself. It ain't right to leave him loose." The other boot thudded upon the floor and Hurley leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs and regarded the toes of his woollen socks. "I've often thought," he continued, after a moment of silence, "that men is oncommon like timber. There's the select, straight-grained, sound stuff, an' all the grades down through the culls 'til you come to the dozy, crooked, rotten-hearted stuff that ain't even fit to burn. There's sound stuff that's rough-barked an' ugly; an' there's rotten-hearted stuff that looks good from the outside. There's some timber an' some men that's built to take on a high polish—don't know as I kin git it acrost to you jest like I mean—but bankers and pianos is like that. Then there's the stuff that's equal as sound an' true but it wouldn't never take no polish on account its bein' rough-grained an' tough-fibred—that's the kind that's picked to carry on the world's heavy work—the kind that goes into bridges an' ships, an' the frames of buildin's. It's the backbone, you might say, of civilization. It ain't purty, but its work ain't purty neither—it jest does what it's picked to do.
"It's cur'us how fer you kin carry it on if yer a mind to. There's some good timber an' some good men that's started bad but ain't got there yet. The bad habits men take on is like surface rot, an' weather checks, an' bug stings—take that stuff an' put it through the mill an' rip it an' plane it down to itself, an' it's as good as the best—sometimes. The danger to that kind is not puttin' it through the mill quick enough, an' the rot strikes through to the heart.
"There's a lot of timber that there ain't much expected of—an' a lot of humans, too. They're the stuff that works up into rough boards, an' cull stuff, an' lath, an' pulp wood, an' cordwood an' the like of that—an' so it goes, folks an' timber runnin' about alike.
"It takes experience an' judgment to sort timber, jest like it takes experience an' judgment to pick men. But no matter how much experience an' judgment he's got, as long as man's got the sortin' to do, mistakes will be made. Then, a long time afterwards, somewheres somethin' goes wrong. They can't no one account fer it, nor explain it—but the Big Inspector—he knows."
Hurley ceased speaking, and Connie, who had followed every word, broke in: "Couldn't we keep Steve here and—put him through the mill?"
The boss shook his head: "No—we didn't catch him young enough. I'm responsible, in a way, fer the men in this camp. This here runt has showed he don't care what he does—s'pose he took a notion to slip somethin' into the grub—what then? Keepin' him in this camp would be like if I seen a rattlesnake in the bunk house an' walked off an' left it there."