CONTINUED PERPLEXITIES. 8&
white columns of steam far aloft out of the 'scape pipes, but it was
too late. The boat had £smelt' the bar in good earnestj the foamy
ridges that radiated from her bows suddenly disappeared, a great dead
swell came rolling forward and swept ahead of her, she careened far
over to larboard, and went tearing away toward the other shore as if
she were about scared to death. We were a good mile from where
we ought to have been, when we finally got the upper hand of her
again.
During the afternoon watch the next day, Mr. Bixby asked me if
I knew how to run the next few miles. I said—
' Go inside the first snag above the point, outside the next one>
start out from the lower end of Higgins's wood-yard, make a square
crossing and———'
* That's all right. I '11 be back before you close up on the next
point.'
But he wasn't. He was still below when I rounded it and entered
upon a piece of river which I had some misgivings about. I did not
know that he was hiding behind a chimney to see how I would per-
form. I went gaily along, getting prouder and prouder, for he had
never left the boat in my sole charge such a length of time before.
I even got to * setting' her and letting the wheel go, entirely, while I
vaingloriously turned my back and inspected the stern marks and
hummed a tune, a sort of easy indifference which I had prodigiously
admired in Bixby and other great pilots. Once I inspected rather
long, and when I faced to the front again my heart flew into my
mouth so suddenly that if I hadn't clapped my teeth together I
should have lost it, One of those frightful bluff reefs was stretching
its deadly length right across our bows I My head was gone in a
moment; I did not know which end I stood on 5 I gasped and could
not get my breath • I spun the wheel down with such rapidity that
it wove itself together like a spider's web; the boat answered and
turned square away from the reef, but the reef followed her ! I fled,
and still it followed, still it kept—right across my bows I I never
looked to see where I was going, I only fled. The awful crash was
imminent —why didn't that villain come 1 If I committed the crime
of ringing a bell, I might get thrown overboard. But better that
than kill the boat. So in blind desperation I started such a rattling
'shiraree7 down below as never had astounded an engineer in this