part of the first trip George was uneasy, but got over it
by and by, as X. seemed content to stay in his bed when asleep.
Late one night the boat was approaching Helena, Arkansas; the water
was low, and the crossing above the town in a very blind and
tangled condition. X. had seen the crossing since Ealer had,
and as the night was particularly drizzly, sullen, and dark,
Ealer was considering whether he had not better have X. called to
assist in running the place, when the door opened and X. walked in.
Now on very dark nights, light is a deadly enemy to piloting;
you are aware that if you stand in a lighted room, on such
a night, you cannot see things in the street to any purpose;
but if you put out the lights and stand in the gloom you can make
out objects in the street pretty well. So, on very 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 undefinable
shape that now entered the pilot-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 _I_ 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 whirligig.’
So Ealer took a seat on the bench, panting and breathless.
The black phantom assumed the wheel without saying anything,
steadied the waltzing steamer with a turn or two, and then stood
at ease, coaxing her a little to this side and then to that,
as gently and as sweetly as if the time had been noonday.
When Ealer observed this marvel of steering, he wished he had
not confessed! He stared, and wondered, and finally said–
‘Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat, but that was
another mistake of mine.’
X. said nothing, but went serenely on with his work. He rang for the leads;
he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat carefully and neatly
into invisible marks, then stood at the center of the wheel and peered
blandly out into the blackness, fore and aft, to verify his position;
as the leads shoaled more and more, he stopped the engines entirely,
and the dead silence and suspense of ‘drifting’ followed when the shoalest
water was struck, he cracked on the steam, carried her handsomely over,
and then began to work her warily into the next system of shoal marks;
the same patient, heedful use of leads and engines followed, the boat
slipped through without touching bottom, and entered upon the third and
last intricacy of the crossing; imperceptibly she moved through the gloom,
crept by inches into her marks, drifted tediously till the shoalest water
was cried, and then, under a tremendous head of steam, went swinging over
the reef and away into deep water and safety!
Ealer let his long-pent breath pour out in a great, relieving sigh, and said–
‘That’s the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on
the Mississippi River! I wouldn’t believed it could be done,
if I hadn’t seen it.’
There was no reply, and he added–
‘Just hold her five minutes longer, partner, and let me run down and get
a cup of coffee.’
A minute later Ealer was biting into a pie, down in the ‘texas,’
and comforting himself with coffee. Just then the night watchman
happened in, and was about to happen out again, when he noticed
Ealer and exclaimed–
‘Who is at the wheel, sir?’
‘X.’
‘Dart for the pilot-house, quicker than lightning!’
The next moment both men were flying up the pilot-house companion way,