Chapter XII

_The Art of Steering_

Every pilot must of necessity be a steersman; but not every steersman

is of necessity a pilot. He may be studying to become a pilot, and

not yet out of the steersman stage. "Cubs" begin their studies by

steering for their chiefs. Many boys become quite expert in handling

a boat, under the eyes of their chiefs, before they are sufficiently

acquainted with the river to be trusted alone at the wheel for any

length of time.

At first thought, one might imagine a number of favorable conditions

as prerequisite to the ideal in steering: a straight piece of river,

plenty of water, and an average steamboat. These would indeed

guarantee leaving a straight wake; but under such conditions a

roustabout might accomplish this. The artistic quality is developed

in the handling of a boat under the usual conditions--in making

the multitudinous crossings, where the jack staff is continually

swinging from side to side as the boat is dodging reefs and hunting

the best water. In doing this, one man puts his wheel so hard down,

and holds it so long, that he finds it necessary to put the wheel

to the very opposite to check the swing of the boat and head it

back to its proper course, in which evolution he has twice placed

his rudder almost squarely across the stern of his boat. If this

athletic procedure is persevered in at every change of course, it

will materially retard the speed of the steamer and leave a wake full

of acute angles, besides giving the steersman an unnecessary amount

of work.

The skilled steersman, combining his art with his exact knowledge

of the bottom of the river, will give his boat only enough wheel to

lay her into her "marks", closely shaving the points of the reefs

and bars, and will "meet her" so gradually and so soon as to check

the swing of the jack staff at the exact moment when the "marks"

are reached. There is then no putting the wheel over to bring the

boat back, after having overreached her marks, and the rudders have

at no time been more than a quarter out of line with the hull of the

boat. It is this delicate handling of the wheel, which differentiates

between the artist and the athlete.

Steamboats have their individuality, the same as pilots and

steersmen. There are boats (or have been), that would almost steer

themselves, while there are others so perverse and tricky that no one

could feel sure of keeping them in the river for any consecutive two

miles. The "Ocean Wave" was, perhaps, the most unreliable and tricky

of all the craft on the upper river--or any river. In low water no

one man ever thought of standing a watch alone at the wheel, and at

times she would run away with two men at the wheel. She was short,

"stubby", and narrow; and when she smelt a reef she would, unless

very carefully handled, under a slow bell, run away from it, often

with one paddle wheel backing while the other was coming ahead, and

the rudder standing squarely across the stern. Many times she has

plumped into the bank under these conditions, and nothing less than

the bank would stop her. The "City Belle", the "Favorite", and the

"Frank Steele" were built much like the "Ocean Wave", but were not

quite so unreliable in steering. She was in a class by herself. On

the other hand, the "Key City", one of the largest, longest, and

finest of the up-river packets, was so well-balanced, and her hull

so finely moulded, that it was a delight to handle her, even under

otherwise unfavorable conditions, such as low water, or high winds.

A stern-wheel boat going downstream when the wind was blowing up

the river, was about as helpless a craft to handle as could well

be imagined. After she was once "straightened down" she was all

right; but in attempting to get her nose pointed down river, after

having made a landing, there were more profane possibilities than

the uninitiated ever dreamed of. The current, acting on the stern

of the boat and the partially-submerged wheel, was all the time

pulling that end of the boat downstream; while the wind, acting

upon the tall chimneys and the pilot house and "Texas", was at the

same time pushing the bow of the boat upstream; and the pilot was

all the while endeavoring to reverse this position, and get the bow

of his boat pointed in the direction in which he wished to go. It

sometimes took hours to accomplish this, particularly if caught in

places where the river was narrow and correspondingly swift, and the

wind strong and contrary. The only way to swing a stern-wheel boat

was, to put the steering wheel hard over, throwing the four rudders

as far to one side as possible, and then back strongly against them.

Under this leverage if there was no wind, the boat would swing easily

and promptly, until her head was pointed downstream; and then by

coming ahead and gaining steerageway, the boat was under perfect

control. But when the wind was blowing upstream, it was often found

impracticable to back fast and far enough to gain the necessary

momentum to swing her in a narrow place; the engines would have to be

stopped before the boat was swung to more than a right angle with the

river, and then, before steerageway was gained after coming ahead,

the bow of the boat would again be pointing upstream, and the same

performance would have to be gone through with--sometimes a dozen

or twenty times, before the boat would get under way in the proper

direction.

In 1881 I saw Henry Link, after having made a landing at Newport,

back the "Mary Morton", of the Diamond Jo Line, more than five

miles down the river, she having swung stern-down at that place. He

see-sawed back and forth across the stream, first in one direction

and then in another, and failed at last to swing his boat against the

strong south wind which was blowing. He finally gave it up and ran

ashore, and getting out a line to a big tree, backed his craft around

until her bow was pointed downstream, and then made a start from a

broadside position against the bank. I happened to be a passenger on

the boat at the time. His remarks on that occasion were unprintable.

A side-wheel boat, under the same conditions, would have backed out

into the river, come ahead on one wheel while backing on the other,

and in two or three minutes would have been going full speed ahead on

the desired course. That is the beauty of the independent side-wheel

system. It is a great saving of labor and morality for the steersman,

and a great saving of time for the owners.

It would seem that if you could get the bow of your boat clear of the

bank, or of an overhanging tree, after pointing in pretty close, that

the rest of the boat would follow the bow and likewise come out,

without any undue intimacy with the trees or bank. It takes only one

trial to disabuse a beginner of this notion. The balance of the boat

does not follow the bow out of such a position; and while every pilot

knows the immutable laws of physics which operate upon his boat under

such circumstances, most of them, sooner or later, get caught, either

through carelessness or recklessness, just as the green cub does

through ignorance.

In running downstream, when you point into the bank, and shave it

closely, you pull the bow of the boat away, and then there are two

forces over which you have no control with your steering wheel: the

impetus of the after half of your boat is still in the direction of

the bank, after the forward half has begun to swing away; which would

also be the case in a perfectly dead lake. In the river, you have

the second force in the current which is pressing against the whole

of the hull, but more particularly against the after part, and this

is pushing the boat in toward the bank after you have pulled her bow

away from it. The result is, that while you may clear the bank with

the bow of the boat, the stern swings in and gets the punishment.

Because of these two laws of physics, it was almost impossible to run

a stern-wheel boat around the sharp bend in Coon Slough, a feat which

"Tom" Burns performed several times without stopping a wheel. "Jack"

Harris tried it with the big side-wheeler, the "Northern Light", late

in the fall, when the anchor ice was running. Her bow got around all

right; but her stern swung into the ice which had lodged in the bend,

with the result that the whole stern was torn away, and she sank in

twenty feet of water. "Ned" West tried a similar experiment at Dayton

Bluff, just below St. Paul, with the "Key City". He ran in very close

to the rocky shore, under full headway. He got her head out in good

shape, but the stern struck the rocks, tearing out the rudder and

smashing the deadwood. He worked her back to St. Paul with the wheels

alone, and there the damage was repaired. I doubt if he was even

reprimanded, for he was the "fastest" pilot on the upper river, as

well as one of the best, and getting eight hundred dollars a month

for his services. He could get a boat over the course from St. Louis

to St. Paul, in less time than any other pilot could take the same

boat, and that of course carried with it the supposition that he

knew the river as well as any man.

I learned the lesson myself through inattention. I was well

acquainted with the principle through precept, and had been very

careful not to run too near the bank. Coming down from St. Croix

Falls with the "H. S. Allen", on reaching the mouth of the Apple

River, I saw a school of black bass lying on the white sandy bottom

where the Apple River empties into the St. Croix. The inflow from

Apple River sets almost squarely across the St. Croix, and when

the former is in flood the current sets nearly across the channel.

To meet it, it is necessary to point toward the incoming current,

to prevent being thrown against the opposite bank. Being an ardent

fisherman I was deeply interested in the scores of fine fish plainly

distinguishable from the height of the pilot house. The result was

inevitable. I neglected to point the bow of the boat sufficiently

against the inflow, and she took a sheer for the opposite bank the

instant she struck the cross current. I pulled the wheel hard over

in an instant, and got the bow clear of the overhanging timber, but

the stern went under, and when it came out the "H. S. Allen" lacked

two escape pipes and half of the washroom and laundry. The stewardess

herself was short about half her senses, and all her temper. The

captain had seen the same trick performed by older and better pilots

than myself, and was not unduly distressed. It took about one hundred

dollars to make the boat presentable. I did not tell about the black

bass for some time after the incident occurred--long enough after so

that there would be no obvious connection between the fish and the

missing laundry.

The man who has once mastered the art of steering a steamboat on

Western waters, never loses his love for it. Whatever may have been

his occupation after leaving the river, his hands instinctively

reach out for the wheel if fortune so favors him as to place the

opportunity within his reach. I mean, of course, the man who sees and

feels more than the mere turning of the wheel so many hours a day,

for so much money to be paid at the completion of his task. It may be

work, and hard work, for the enthusiast as well as for the hireling;

but with the man who puts his spirit into the task, it is work

ennobled by painstaking devotion, and glorified by the realization

of work artistically and lovingly done. To such a man there is an

exhilaration about the handling of a big steamboat in the crooked

channels of the Great River, akin to that felt by the accomplished

horseman when guiding a spirited team of roadsters, or that of the

engineer, holding the throttle of a great locomotive rushing over

the rails at a speed of sixty miles an hour. However long the hands

of the horseman or the engineer may have been divorced from reins or

throttle, there is the same longing to grasp the one or the other

when the opportunity offers. It is a wholly natural craving of the

inner being; and however inexplicable it may be, it is there.

For forty years, since leaving the river for other pursuits, often

harassing and full of care, I have dreamed, time and again, of

holding a wheel on one of the old-time boats on which I served as

a boy. In my sleep I have felt again the satisfaction in work well

done, the mortification of failure, and have felt again the cares and

responsibilities that weighed so heavily when beset with difficulties

and dangers. It is all as real as though I again stood at the

wheel, doing real work, and achieving real victories over besetting

difficulties and dangers. Mere work, as a means of earning a living,

would not take such hold upon one's nature. It is the soul of the

artist incarnate in the pilot.