ONE day, on board the 'Aleck Scott,' my chief, Mr. Bixby,was crawling carefully through a close place at Cat Island,both leads going, and everybody holding his breath. The captain,a nervous, apprehensive man, kept still as long as he could,but finally broke down and shouted from the hurricane deck--'For gracious' sake, give her steam, Mr. Bixby! give her steam!

She'll never raise the reef on this headway!'

For all the effect that was produced upon Mr. Bixby, one would have supposedthat no remark had been made. But five minutes later, when the dangerwas past and the leads laid in, he burst instantly into a consuming fury,and gave the captain the most admirable cursing I ever listened to.

No bloodshed ensued; but that was because the captain's cause was weak;for ordinarily he was not a man to take correction quietly.

Having now set forth in detail the nature of the science of piloting,and likewise described the rank which the pilot held among the fraternityof steamboatmen, this seems a fitting place to say a few words about anorganization which the pilots once formed for the protection of their guild.

It was curious and noteworthy in this, that it was perhaps the compactest,the completest, and the strongest commercial organization everformed among men.

For a long time wages had been two hundred and fifty dollars a month;but curiously enough, as steamboats multiplied and business increased,the wages began to fall little by little. It was easy to discoverthe reason of this. Too many pilots were being 'made.' It was niceto have a 'cub,' a steersman, to do all the hard work for a coupleof years, gratis, while his master sat on a high bench and smoked;all pilots and captains had sons or nephews who wanted to be pilots. By andby it came to pass that nearly every pilot on the river had a steersman.

When a steersman had made an amount of progress that was satisfactoryto any two pilots in the trade, they could get a pilot's license for himby signing an application directed to the United States Inspector.

Nothing further was needed; usually no questions were asked, no proofsof capacity required.

Very well, this growing swarm of new pilots presentlybegan to undermine the wages, in order to get berths.

Too late--apparently--the knights of the tiller perceivedtheir mistake. Plainly, something had to be done, and quickly;but what was to be the needful thing. A close organization.

Nothing else would answer. To compass this seemed an impossibility;so it was talked, and talked, and then dropped.

It was too likely to ruin whoever ventured to movein the matter. But at last about a dozen of the boldest--and some of them the best--pilots on the river launchedthemselves into the enterprise and took all the chances.

They got a special charter from the legislature, with large powers,under the name of the Pilots' Benevolent Association;elected their officers, completed their organization,contributed capital, put 'association' wages up to two hundredand fifty dollars at once--and then retired to their homes,for they were promptly discharged from employment.

But there were two or three unnoticed trifles in their by-lawswhich had the seeds of propagation in them. For instance,all idle members of the association, in good standing,were entitled to a pension of twenty-five dollars per month.

This began to bring in one straggler after another from the ranksof the new-fledged pilots, in the dull (summer) season.

Better have twenty-five dollars than starve; the initiationfee was only twelve dollars, and no dues requiredfrom the unemployed.

Also, the widows of deceased members in good standing coulddraw twenty-five dollars per month, and a certain sum for eachof their children. Also, the said deceased would be buriedat the association's expense. These things resurrected allthe superannuated and forgotten pilots in the Mississippi Valley.

They came from farms, they came from interior villages, they camefrom everywhere. They came on crutches, on drays, in ambulances,--any way, so they got there. They paid in their twelve dollars,and straightway began to draw out twenty-five dollars a month,and calculate their burial bills.

By and by, all the useless, helpless pilots, and a dozen first-class ones,were in the association, and nine-tenths of the best pilots out of itand laughing at it. It was the laughing-stock of the whole river.

Everybody joked about the by-law requiring members to pay ten per cent.

of their wages, every month, into the treasury for the supportof the association, whereas all the members were outcast and tabooed,and no one would employ them. Everybody was derisively gratefulto the association for taking all the worthless pilots out of the wayand leaving the whole field to the excellent and the deserving;and everybody was not only jocularly grateful for that, but for aresult which naturally followed, namely, the gradual advance of wagesas the busy season approached. Wages had gone up from the low figureof one hundred dollars a month to one hundred and twenty-five, and insome cases to one hundred and fifty; and it was great fun to enlargeupon the fact that this charming thing had been accomplished by a bodyof men not one of whom received a particle of benefit from it.

Some of the jokers used to call at the association rooms and havea good time chaffing the members and offering them the charityof taking them as steersmen for a trip, so that they could see whatthe forgotten river looked like. However, the association was content;or at least it gave no sign to the contrary. Now and then itcaptured a pilot who was 'out of luck,' and added him to its list;and these later additions were very valuable, for they were good pilots;the incompetent ones had all been absorbed before. As business freshened,wages climbed gradually up to two hundred and fifty dollars--the association figure--and became firmly fixed there; and stillwithout benefiting a member of that body, for no member was hired.

The hilarity at the association's expense burst all bounds, now.

There was no end to the fun which that poor martyr had toput up with.

However, it is a long lane that has no turning. Winter approached,business doubled and trebled, and an avalanche of Missouri,Illinois and Upper Mississippi River boats came pouring downto take a chance in the New Orleans trade. All of a suddenpilots were in great demand, and were correspondingly scarce.

The time for revenge was come. It was a bitter pill to have toaccept association pilots at last, yet captains and owners agreedthat there was no other way. But none of these outcasts offered!

So there was a still bitterer pill to be swallowed:

they must be sought out and asked for their services.

Captain ---- was the first man who found it necessary to takethe dose, and he had been the loudest derider of the organization.

He hunted up one of the best of the association pilots and said--'Well, you boys have rather got the best of us for alittle while, so I'll give in with as good a grace as I can.

I've come to hire you; get your trunk aboard right away.

I want to leave at twelve o'clock.'

'I don't know about that. Who is your other pilot?'

'I've got I. S----. Why?'

'I can't go with him. He don't belong to the association.'

'What!'

'It's so.'

'Do you mean to tell me that you won't turn a wheel with one of the very bestand oldest pilots on the river because he don't belong to your association?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Well, if this isn't putting on airs! I supposed I was doing youa benevolence; but I begin to think that I am the party that wantsa favor done. Are you acting under a law of the concern?'

'Yes.'

'Show it to me.'

So they stepped into the association rooms, and the secretarysoon satisfied the captain, who said--'Well, what am I to do? I have hired Mr. S---- for the entire season.'

'I will provide for you,' said the secretary. 'I will detail a pilotto go with you, and he shall be on board at twelve o'clock.'

'But if I discharge S----, he will come on me for the whole season's wages.'

'Of course that is a matter between you and Mr. S----, captain.

We cannot meddle in your private affairs.'

The captain stormed, but to no purpose. In the end he had to dischargeS----, pay him about a thousand dollars, and take an association pilotin his place. The laugh was beginning to turn the other way now.

Every day, thenceforward, a new victim fell; every day some outragedcaptain discharged a non-association pet, with tears and profanity,and installed a hated association man in his berth. In a verylittle while, idle non-associationists began to be pretty plenty,brisk as business was, and much as their services were desired.

The laugh was shifting to the other side of their mouths most palpably.

These victims, together with the captains and owners, presently ceasedto laugh altogether, and began to rage about the revenge they would takewhen the passing business 'spurt' was over.

Soon all the laughers that were left were the ownersand crews of boats that had two non-association pilots.

But their triumph was not very long-lived. For this reason:

It was a rigid rule of the association that its members should never,under any circumstances whatever, give information about the channelto any 'outsider.' By this time about half the boats had nonebut association pilots, and the other half had none but outsiders.

At the first glance one would suppose that when it cameto forbidding information about the river these two partiescould play equally at that game; but this was not so.

At every good-sized town from one end of the river to the other,there was a 'wharf-boat' to land at, instead of a wharf or a pier.

Freight was stored in it for transportation; waiting passengers sleptin its cabins. Upon each of these wharf-boats the association'sofficers placed a strong box fastened with a peculiar lock which wasused in no other service but one--the United States mail service.

It was the letter-bag lock, a sacred governmental thing.

By dint of much beseeching the government had beenpersuaded to allow the association to use this lock.

Every association man carried a key which would open these boxes.

That key, or rather a peculiar way of holding it in the handwhen its owner was asked for river information by a stranger--for the success of the St. Louis and New Orleans associationhad now bred tolerably thriving branches in a dozen neighboringsteamboat trades--was the association man's sign and diplomaof membership; and if the stranger did not respond by producinga similar key and holding it in a certain manner duly prescribed,his question was politely ignored. From the association's secretaryeach member received a package of more or less gorgeous blanks,printed like a billhead, on handsome paper, properly ruled in columns;a bill-head worded something like this--STEAMER GREAT REPUBLIC.

JOHN SMITH MASTERPILOTS, JOHN JONES AND THOMAS BROWN.

+-------------------------------------------------------------+| CROSSINGS. | SOUNDINGS. | MARKS. | REMARKS. |+-------------------------------------------------------------+These blanks were filled up, day by day, as the voyageprogressed, and deposited in the several wharf-boat boxes.

For instance, as soon as the first crossing, out from St. Louis,was completed, the items would be entered upon the blank,under the appro............