67

CHAPTER VII.
A DARING DEED.
WHEN I returned to the pilot-house St. Louis was gone and I was
lost. Here was a piece of river which was all down in my book, but
I could make neither head nor tail of it: you understand, it was
turned around. I had seen it when coming up-stream, but I had
never faced about to see how it looked when it was behind me. My
heart broke again, for it was plain that I had got to leirn this trou-
blesome river both ways.
The pilot-house was full of pilots, going down to ' look at the
river.' What is called the * upper river' (the two hundred miles
between St. Louis and Cairo, where the Ohio comes in) was low; and
the Mississippi changes its channel so constantly that the pilots used
to always find it necessary to run down to Cairo to take a fresh look,
when their boats were to lie in port a week; that is, when the water
was at a low stage. A deal of this * looking at the river' was done
by poor fellows who seldom had a berth, and w hose only hope of
getting one lay in their being always freshly posted and therefore
ready to drop into the shoes of some reputable pilot, for a single tripy
on account of such pilot's sudden illness, or some other necessity.
And a good many of them constantly ran up and down inspecting the
river, not because they ever really hoped to get a berth, but because
(they being guests of the boat) it was cheaper to ' look at the river'
than stay ashore and pay board. In time these fellows grew dainty
in their tastes, and only infested boats that had an established reputa-
tion for setting good tables. All visiting pilots were useful, for they
were always ready and willing, winter or summer, night or day, to
go out in the yawl and help buoy the channel or assist the boat's