Chapter 10 - Page 2

For one thing, it tells you the stage of the river--tells you whether
there's more water or less in the river along here than there
was last trip.'

'The leads tell me that.' I rather thought I had the advantage
of him there.

'Yes, but suppose the leads lie? The bank would tell you so,
and then you'd stir those leadsmen up a bit. There was a ten-foot
bank here last trip, and there is only a six-foot bank now.
What does that signify?'

'That the river is four feet higher than it was last trip.'

'Very good. Is the river rising or falling?'

'Rising.'

'No it ain't.'

'I guess I am right, sir. Yonder is some drift-wood floating
down the stream.'

'A rise starts the drift-wood, but then it keeps on floating a while after
the river is done rising. Now the bank will tell you about this. Wait till
you come to a place where it shelves a little. Now here; do you see this
narrow belt of fine sediment That was deposited while the water was higher.
You see the driftwood begins to strand, too. The bank helps in other ways.
Do you see that stump on the false point?'

'Ay, ay, sir.'

'Well, the water is just up to the roots of it.
You must make a note of that.'

'Why?'

'Because that means that there's seven feet in the chute of 103.'

'But 103 is a long way up the river yet.'

'That's where the benefit of the bank comes in. There is water
enough in 103 NOW, yet there may not be by the time we get there;
but the bank will keep us posted all along. You don't run close
chutes on a falling river, up-stream, and there are precious few
of them that you are allowed to run at all down-stream. There's
a law of the United States against it. The river may be rising
by the time we get to 103, and in that case we'll run it.
We are drawing--how much?'

'Six feet aft,--six and a half forward.'

'Well, you do seem to know something.'

'But what I particularly want to know is, if I have got to keep up an
everlasting measuring of the banks of this river, twelve hundred miles,
month in and month out?'

'Of course!'

My emotions were too deep for words for a while.
Presently I said--'

And how about these chutes. Are there many of them?'

'I should say so. I fancy we shan't run any of the river this trip
as you've ever seen it run before--so to speak. If the river begins
to rise again, we'll go up behind bars that you've always seen
standing out of the river, high and dry like the roof of a house;
we'll cut across low places that you've never noticed at all,
right through the middle of bars that cover three hundred acres of river;
we'll creep through cracks where you've always thought was solid