Brent was of Teutonic extraction, brought up in Brookline, educated in the Yale Forestry School, and experienced in the offices of the Bureau of Forestry before it had had charge of the nation's estates. He possessed a methodical mind, a rather intolerant disposition, thick glasses, a very cold and precise manner, extreme personal neatness, and abysmal ignorance of the West. He disapproved of California John's rather slipshod dress, to start with; his ingrained reticence shrank from Davidson's informal cordiality; his orderly mind recoiled with horror from the jumble of the Supervisor's accounts and reports. As he knew nothing whatever of the Sierras, he was quite unable to appreciate the value of trails, of fenced meadows, of a countryside of peace--those things were so much a matter of course back East that he hardly noticed them one way or another. Brent's thoroughness burrowed deep into office failures. One by one he dragged them to the light and examined them through his near-sighted glasses. They were bad enough in all conscience; and Brent was not in the least malicious in the inferences he drew. Only he had no conception of judging the Man with the Time and the Place. He believed in military smartness, in discipline, in ordered activities. "It seems to me you give your rangers a great deal of freedom and latitude," said he one day. "Well," said California John, "strikes me that's the only way. With men like these you got to get their confidence." Brent peered at him. "H'm," said he sarcastically, "do you think you have done so?" California John flushed through his tan at the implication, but he replied nothing. This studied respect for his superior officer on the Supervisor's part encouraged Brent to deliver from time to time rather priggish little homilies on the way to run a Forest. California John listened, but with a sardonic smile concealed beneath his sun-bleached moustache. After a little, however, Brent became more inclined to bring home the personal application. Then California John grew restive. "In fact," Brent concluded his incisive remarks one day, "you run this place entirely too much along your own lines." California John leaned forward. "Is that an official report?" he asked. "What?" inquired Brent, puzzled. "That last remark. Because if it ain't you'd better put it in writing and make it official. Step right in and do it now!" Brent looked at him in slight bewilderment. "I'm willing to hear your talk," went on California John quietly. "Some of it's good talk, even if it ain't put out in no very good spirit; and I ain't kicking on criticism--that's what I'm here for, and what you're here for. But I ain't here for no _private_ remarks. If you've got anything to kick on, put it down and sign it and send it on. I'll stand for it, and explain it if I can; or take my medicine if I can't. But anything you ain't ready and willing to report on, I don't want to take from you private. _Sabe?_"