Chapter 7 - Page 2

even of sufficient consequence to assist at the wheel when it
was necessary to put the tiller hard down in a hurry; the guest that stood
nearest did that when occasion required--and this was pretty much all
the time, because of the crookedness of the channel and the scant water.
I stood in a corner; and the talk I listened to took the hope all out of me.
One visitor said to another--

'Jim, how did you run Plum Point, coming up?'

'It was in the night, there, and I ran it the way one of the boys
on the "Diana" told me; started out about fifty yards above
the wood pile on the false point, and held on the cabin
under Plum Point till I raised the reef--quarter less twain--
then straightened up for the middle bar till I got well abreast
the old one-limbed cotton-wood in the bend, then got my stern
on the cotton-wood and head on the low place above the point,
and came through a-booming--nine and a half.'

'Pretty square crossing, an't it.?'

'Yes, but the upper bar 's working down fast.'

Another pilot spoke up and said--

'I had better water than that, and ran it lower down;
started out from the false point--mark twain--raised the second
reef abreast the big snag in the bend, and had quarter less twain.'

One of the gorgeous ones remarked--

'I don't want to find fault with your leadsmen, but that's a good deal
of water for Plum Point, it seems to me.'

There was an approving nod all around as this quiet snub dropped on
the boaster and 'settled' him. And so they went on talk-talk talking.
Meantime, the thing that was running in my mind was, 'Now if my ears
hear aright, I have not only to get the names of all the towns and islands
and bends, and so on, by heart, but I must even get up a warm personal
acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cotton-wood and obscure
wood pile that ornaments the banks of this river for twelve hundred miles;
and more than that, I must actually know where these things are in the dark,
unless these guests are gifted with eyes that can pierce through two miles
of solid blackness; I wish the piloting business was in Jericho and I had
never thought of it.'

At dusk Mr. Bixby tapped the big bell three times (the signal
to land), and the captain emerged from his drawing-room
in the forward end of the texas, and looked up inquiringly.
Mr. Bixby said--

'We will lay up here all night, captain.'

'Very well, sir.'

That was all. The boat came to shore and was tied up for the night.
It seemed to me a fine thing that the pilot could do as he pleased,
without asking so grand a captain's permission. I took my supper and went
immediately to bed, discouraged by my day's observations and experiences.
My late