CHAPTER III

. A little History.--Early Commerce.--Coal Fleets and Timber

Rafts.--We start on a Voyage.--I seek Information.--Some Music.--The Trouble begins.--Tall Talk.--The Child of Calamity.--Ground and lofty Tumbling.--The Wash-up.--Business and Statistics.--Mysterious Band.--Thunder and Lightning.--The Captain speaks.--Allbright weeps.--The Mystery settled.--Chaff.--I am Discovered.--Some Art-work proposed.--I give an Account of Myself.--Released.

## CHAPTER IV . The Boys' Ambition.--Village Scenes.--Steamboat Pictures.

--A Heavy Swell.--A Runaway.

## CHAPTER V . A Traveller.--A Lively Talker.--A Wild-cat Victim

## CHAPTER VI . Besieging the Pilot.--Taken along.--Spoiling a Nap.--Fishing

for a Plantation.--“Points” on the River.--A Gorgeous Pilot-house.

## CHAPTER VII . River Inspectors.--Cottonwoods and Plum Point.--Hat-Island

Crossing.--Touch and Go.--It is a Go.--A Lightning Pilot

## CHAPTER VIII . A Heavy-loaded Big Gun.--Sharp Sights in

Darkness.--Abandoned to his Fate.--Scraping the Banks.--Learn him or Kill him.

## CHAPTER IX . Shake the Reef.--Reason Dethroned.--The Face of the Water.

--A Bewitching Scene.-Romance and Beauty.

## CHAPTER X . Putting on Airs.--Taken down a bit.--Learn it as it is.--The

River Rising.

## CHAPTER XI . In thg Tract Business.--Effects of the Rise.--Plantations

gone.--A Measureless Sea.--A Somnambulist Pilot.--Supernatural Piloting.--Nobody there.--All Saved.

## CHAPTER XII . Low Water.--Yawl sounding.--Buoys and Lanterns.--Cubs and

Soundings.--The Boat Sunk.--Seeking the Wrecked.

## CHAPTER XIII . A Pilot's Memory.--Wages soaring.--A Universal

Grasp.--Skill and Nerve.--Testing a “Cub.”--“Back her for Life.”--A Good Lesson.

## CHAPTER XIV . Pilots and Captains.--High-priced Pilots.--Pilots in

Demand.--A Whistler.--A cheap Trade.--Two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar Speed.

##