Chapter 7

Chapter 7
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 learn this
troublesome 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 whose 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 trip, 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 reputation 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 pilots in any way they could.
They were likewise welcome because all pilots are tireless talkers,
when gathered together, and as they talk only about the river they
are always understood and are always interesting. Your true pilot
cares nothing about anything on earth but the river, and his pride
in his occupation surpasses the pride of kings.

We had a fine company of these river-inspectors along, this trip.
There were eight or ten; and there was abundance of room for them in our
great pilot-house. Two or three of them wore polished silk hats, elaborate
shirt-fronts, diamond breast-pins, kid gloves, and patent-leather boots.
They were choice in their English, and bore themselves with a dignity
proper to men of solid means and prodigious reputation as pilots.
The others were more or less loosely clad, and wore upon their heads tall
felt cones that were suggestive of the days of the Commonwealth.

I was a cipher in this august company, and felt subdued, not to say torpid.
I was not