XXIV
From this moment the old man held his head high, and went about the workwith confidence. He built trails where trails had long been needed; heregulated the grazing; he fought fire so successfully that his burnedarea dropped that year from two per cent. to one-half of one per cent.;he adjusted minor cases of special use and privilege justly. Constantlyhe rode his district on the business of his beloved Forest. Hisbeautiful sorrel, Star, with his silver-mounted caparisons, was afamiliar figure on all the trails. When a man wanted his first SpecialPrivilege, he wrote the Supervisor. The affair was quite apt to bungle.Then California John saw that man personally. After that there was nomore trouble. The countryside dug up the rest of California John's name,and conferred on him the dignity of it. John had heard it scarcely atall for over thirty years. Now he rather liked the sound of "SupervisorDavidson." In the title and the simple dignities attaching thereunto hetook the same gentle and innocent pride that he did in Star, and thesilver-mounted bridle and the carved-leather saddle.
But when evening came, and the end of the month, Supervisor Davidsonalways found himself in trouble. Then he sat down before his typewriter,on which he pecked methodically with the rigid forefinger of his righthand. Naturally slow of thought when confronted by blank paper, themechanical limitations put him far behind in his reports andcorrespondence. Naturally awkward of phrase when deprived of hispicturesque vernacular, he stumbled among phrases. The monthly reportswere a nightmare to him. When at last they were finished, he breathed adeep sigh, and went out into his sugar pines and spruces.
In August California John received his first inspector. At that time theForest Service, new to the saddle, heir to the confusion left by theLand Office, knew neither its field nor its office men as well as itdoes now. Occasionally it made mistakes in those it sent out. Brent wasone of them.
Brent was of Teutonic extraction, brought up in Brookline, educated inthe Yale Forestry School, and experienced in the offices of the Bureauof Forestry before it had had charge of the nation's estates. Hepossessed a methodical mind, a rather intolerant disposition, thickglasses, a very cold and precise manner, extreme personal neatness, andabysmal ignorance of the West. He disapproved of California John'srather slipshod dress, to start with; his ingrained reticence shrankfrom Davidson's informal cordiality; his orderly mind recoiled withhorror from the jumble of the Supervisor's accounts and reports. As heknew nothing whatever of the Sierras, he was quite unable to appreciatethe value of trails, of fenced meadows, of a countryside of peace--thosethings were so much a matter of course back East that he hardly noticedthem one way or another. Brent's thoroughness burrowed deep into officefailures. One by one he dragged them to the light and examined themthrough his near-sighted glasses. They were bad enough in allconscience; and Brent was not in the least malicious in the inferenceshe drew. Only he had no conception of judging the Man with the Time andthe Place.
He believed in military smartness, in discipline, in ordered activities.
"It seems to me you give your rangers a great deal of freedom andlatitude," said he one day.
"Well," said California John, "strikes me that's the only way. With menlike 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 hereplied nothing.
This studied respect for his superior officer on the Supervisor's partencouraged Brent to deliver from time to time rather priggish littlehomilies on the way to run a Forest. California John listened, but witha sardonic smile concealed beneath his sun-bleached moustache. After alittle, however, Brent became more inclined to bring home the personalapplication. Then California John grew restive.
"In fact," Brent concluded his incisive remarks one day, "you run thisplace 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 writingand 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. "Someof it's good talk, even if it ain't put out in no very good spirit; andI ain't kicking on criticism--that's what I'm here for, and what you'rehere for. But I ain't here for no _private_ remarks. If you've gotanything to kick on, put it down and sign it and send it on. I'll standfor it, and explain it if I can; or take my medicine if I can't. Butanything you ain't ready and willing to report on, I don't want to takefrom you private. _Sabe?_"
Brent bowed coldly, turned his back and walked away without a word.California John looked after him.
"Well, that wasn't no act of Solomon," he told himself; "but, anyway, Ifeel better."
After Brent's departure it took California John two weeks to recover hisequanimity and self-confidence. Then the importance of his work grippedhim once more. He looked about him at the grazing, the policing, thefire-fighting, all the varied business of the reserves. In them all heknew was no graft, and no favouritism. The trails were being improved;the cabins built; the meadows for horse-feed fenced; the bridges builtand repaired; the country patrolled by honest and enthusiastic men. Herecalled the old days of Henry Plant's administration under theLand-Office--the graft, the supineness, the inefficiency, the confusion.
"We're savin' the People's property, and keepin' it in good shape," heargued to himself, "and that's sure the main point. If we take care ofthings, we've done the main job. Let the other fellows do the heavyfiggerin'. The city's full of cheap bookkeepers who can't do nothingelse."