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.
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