THE RIVER RISES.

Ill

dark nights, pilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilot-
house stove if there is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape;
they order the furnaces to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and
the sky-lights to be closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues
from the boat. The ^indefinable shape that now entered the pilot-

THE PHANTOM ASSUMED
THE WHEEL.'
house had Mr. X. s voice.
This said—
Let me take her, George;
I've seen this place since you
have, and it is so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier
than I.could tell you how to do it/
* It is kind of you, and I swear / am willing. I haven't got
another drop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning around
and around the wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark I can't tell
which way she is swinging till she is coming around like a wliirligig.'