Chapter XI

_Knowing the River_

To "know the river" fully, the pilot must not only know everything

which may be seen by the eye, but he must also feel for a great

deal of information of the first importance which is not revealed

to the eye alone. Where the water warrants it, he reaches for this

information with a lead line; as on the lower river, where the water

is deeper, and the draft of boats correspondingly great. On the

upper river, a twelve-foot pole answers instead. The performance

is always one of great interest to the passengers; the results are

often of greater interest to the man at the wheel. The manner in

which the reports of the leadsman are received and digested by the

pilot, is not usually known to or comprehended by the uninitiated.

The proceeding is picturesque, and adds one more "feature" to the

novelties of the trip. It is always watched with the greatest

interest by the tourist, and is apparently always enjoyed by them,

whatever the effect upon the pilot; whether he enjoys it or not

depends on the circumstances.

Soundings are not always necessarily for the immediate and present

purpose of working the boat over any particular bar, at the

particular time at which they are taken, although they may be taken

for that purpose and no other. In general, during the season of low

water, the leads are kept going in all difficult places as much for

the purpose of comparison as for the immediate purpose of feeling

one's way over the especial reef or bar where the soundings are

taken. If it is suspected that a reef is "making down", the pilot

wants to satisfy himself on that point, so that he may readjust his

marks to meet the changed outlines. If a reef is "dissolving", he

also wants to know that, and readjust his marks accordingly--only

in the first place, his marks will be set lower down the river; in

case of a dissolving reef, his marks will be set farther upstream,

to follow the deep water which is always found close under the

reef--that is, on the downstream side. The shallowest water is always

on the crest of the reef, and it "tapers" back, upstream, very

gradually, for rods--sometimes for half a mile or even more, until

another reef is reached, with deep water under it, and another system

of shallows above.

This is where the perfection of the pilot's memory machine is

demonstrated along another line. He has acquainted himself with every

bluff, hill, rock, tree, stump, house, woodpile, and whatever else

is to be noted along the banks of the river. He has further added to

this fund of information a photographic negative in his mind, showing

the shape of all the curves, bends, capes, and points of the river's

banks, so that he may shut his eyes, yet see it all, and with such

certainty that he can, on a night so perfectly black that the shore

line is blotted out, run his boat within fifty feet of the shore and

dodge snags, wrecks, overhanging trees, and all other obstacles by

running the shape of the river as he knows it to be--not as he can

see it. In sounding, he is mentally charting the bottom of the river

as he has already charted the surface and its surroundings.

As he approaches the crossing which he wishes to verify, he pulls the

rope attached to the tongue of the big bell on the roof, and sounds

one stroke, and an instant later two strokes. The captain or mate

on watch sings out: "Starboard lead!" "Larboard lead!" and the men

detailed for the duty are at their stations in a minute or less after

the order is given. Then the cry, first from starboard and then from

port, long-drawn and often musical: "No-o-o bottom; no-o-o bottom!"

rises from the fo'c'sle, and is repeated by the captain or mate to

the pilot. "Mar-r-k twain, mar-r-r-k twain!" indicates soundings the

depth of the sounding pole--twelve feet, or two fathoms. This is

of no interest to the pilot, for he knew there was "no bottom" and

"two fathoms" before the soundings were taken. It is of the highest

interest to the passengers, however, to whom the cry of "no bottom"

seems a paradox, when the boat has been rubbing the bottom most of

the way from Rock Island up. They have not yet been taught that this

simply means no bottom with a twelve-foot pole, and does not indicate

that the Mississippi is a bottomless stream at this or any other

point.

On the upper river, the cry of "ten feet, eight and a half", or even

"six feet", does not strike any sensitive spot in the pilot's mental

machinery, for upper river men are used to running "where there

is a heavy dew". On such occasions he might listen to the latest

story, detailed by a visiting comrade, and even take part in the

conversation, apparently indifferent to the monotonous cries from

the lower deck. But all the time his brain is fitting the leadsman's

cries to the marks in which the cries have found his boat--not

consciously, perhaps, but nevertheless surely. He has not only fitted

the cry into the marks, but has mentally compared the present with

the depth of water cried at the same spot last trip, and the trip

before that, and noted the change, if any has taken place. Say the

leadsman has sung "six feet", "six feet", "six feet", "six feet",

"six feet", until you would think there was no other depth but six

feet in the river; then in the same tone he sings "five-and-a-half",

"six feet", "six feet", "six feet". The pilot is still talking with

his visitor, watching his marks and turning his wheel; but he has

picked out that "five-and-a-half" and stored it away for future

reference, together with all the surroundings of his boat at the

instant the call reached his ear--the marks ahead, astern, and on

either side. The next trip, as the leadsman sings "six feet", "six

feet", "six feet", he will be shocked and grievously disappointed if

he does not find his "five-and-a-half" at just that point. And he

will not be counting the "six feet" cries, nor, possibly, will he be

aware that he is looking for the "five-and-a-half". When he drops

into the marks where the "five-and-a-half" found him last week, if he

hears only the "six feet", he will be in a similar frame of mind to

the man who, coming into town, misses a prominent tree or house, and

asks: "Where is that big tree that stood on the corner, when I was

here last time"?

The pilot does all this without realizing that he is making any

mental effort. When he begins this sort of drill as a "cub", he

realizes it fully; and if he is half sharp he will open an account

with every shoal place between Rock Island and St. Paul, and set down

in writing the soundings on the lowest place on each reef, and try to

supply the marks in which his steamer lay when the cry was heard. As

he grows in his studies he will rely less on his notebook and more

upon his memory, until the mental picture of the bottom of the river

becomes as vivid as that of the surface. Then, when his chief asks

suddenly: "How much water was there on the middle crossing at Beef

Slough last trip"? he can answer promptly: "Four feet on starboard,

four feet scant on port".

"How much trip before last?"

"Four feet large, both sides."

"Right, my boy; you're doing well."

If that "cub" doesn't grow an inch in a minute, under these

circumstances, he isn't the right kind of boy to have around.

Naturally the boys studied the "nightmares", first of all. If they

could get over Cassville, Brownsville, Trempealeau, Rolling-stone,

Beef Slough, Prescott, Grey Cloud, and Pig's Eye, they could manage

all the rest of the river. But the leads were kept going in fifty

other places which, while not so bad, had enough possibilities to

warrant the closest watching. The chiefs were making mental notes of

all these places, and could tell you the soundings on every crossing

where a lead had been cast, as readily as the "cubs" could recite the

capital letter readings of Beef Slough and Pig's Eye. The miracle of

it was, how they could do this without giving any apparent attention

to the matter at the time. They struck the bell, the leadsman sang,

the mate or captain repeated the cries mechanically, while the

pilot appeared to pay little or no attention to the matter. When

he had enough of the music he tapped the bell to lay in the leads,

and nothing was said as to the results. Yet if asked at St. Paul

by a brother pilot how much water he found on any one of a hundred

crossings of average depth, he could tell, without hesitation, just

where he found the lowest cast of the lead.

In my experience as a printer I have stood at the case and set up an

editorial out of my head (how "able" I will not pretend to say), at

the same time keeping up a spirited argument on politics or religion

with a visitor. The thinking appeared to be all devoted to the

argument; it was probably the talking only. To set the type required

no thought at all; that was purely mechanical; and to compose the

editorial was the unconscious operation of the mind, accustomed

to doing just this sort of thing, until the framing of words into

sentences became more or less mechanical. Certainly the mental drill

of a river pilot along a very few lines, developed a memory for the

things pertaining to his profession which was wonderful, when you

sit down and attempt to analyze it. To the men themselves it was not

a wonder--it was the merest commonplace. It was among the things

which you must acquire before you could pilot a steamboat; and for

a consideration they would covenant to teach any boy of average

mental ability and common sense all these things, provided always

that he had the physical ability to handle a wheel, and provided

also, that he demonstrated in time of trial that he had the "nerve"

necessary for the business. A timid, cowardly, or doubting person

had no business in the pilot house. If it were possible for him to

acquire all the rest, and he lacked the nerve to steady him in time

of danger, he was promptly dropped out of the business.

I saw this illustrated in the case of a rapids pilot between St.

Paul and St. Anthony. We always made this trip when a cargo of flour

was offered by the one mill which in that early day represented all

there was of that great interest which now dominates the business of

Minneapolis. While our pilots were both capable of taking the boat

to St. Anthony and back, the underwriters required that we should

take a special pilot for the trip--one who made a specialty of that

run. On the occasion in point we had taken an unusually heavy cargo,

as the river was at a good stage. At that time the channel was very

crooked, winding about between reefs of solid rock, with an eight

to ten mile current. It required skilful manipulation of the wheel

to keep the stern of the boat off the rocks. In going downstream it

is comparatively easy to get the bow of a steamer around a crooked

place; it is not easy to keep the stern from swinging into danger.

In this case the stern of the steamer struck a rock reef with such

force as to tear one of the wing rudders out by the roots, in doing

which enough noise was made to warrant the belief that half the boat

was gone. The special pilot was satisfied that such was the case,

and exclaimed: "She is gone!" at the same time letting go the wheel

and jumping for the pilot house door. She would have been smashed

into kindlings in a minute if she had been left to herself, or had

the engines been stopped even for an instant. Fortunately the rapids

pilot was so scared by the noise of rending timbers and wheel-buckets

that he did not have nerve enough left to ring a bell, and the

engineer on watch was not going to stop until a bell was rung, as he

knew that the drift of a minute in that white water, would pile us

up on the next reef below. Fortunately for the "Fanny Harris", Tom

Cushing was in the pilot house, as well as myself. When the other

man dropped the wheel Cushing jumped for it, and fired an order to

me to get hold of the other side of the wheel, and for the next six

miles he turned and twisted among the reefs, under a full head of

steam, which was necessary to give us steerageway in such a current.

We never stopped until we reached St. Paul, where we ran over to the

west shore, it being shallow, and beached the boat. When she struck

land the captain took the special pilot by the collar and kicked him

ashore, at the same time giving him the benefit of the strongest

language in use on the river at that time. Beyond the loss of a

rudder and some buckets from the wheel, the boat was not seriously

damaged, and we continued the voyage to Galena as we were. Had Tom

Cushing not been in the pilot house at the time, she would have been

a wreck in the rapids a mile or so below St. Anthony Falls. The

rapids pilot lost his certificate.

[Illustration: TYPICAL PORTION OF THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI. Map of the

river between Cassville, Wis., and Guttenberg, Iowa, showing the

characteristic winding of the stream.]