I managed to work my way around the Kinnickinnic bar, and made the run up to the Afton (or "Catfish") bar, around which the channel was quite narrow and wofully crooked. Thus far, the high banks had sheltered us somewhat from the wind. Here, however, the low-lying prairie came down to the water's edge. The sweep of the wind was terrific, while the downpour of rain was such that at times it was impossible to see any landmarks a hundred feet away. Captain Gray, wrapped in his storm clothes, who had, since the tempest broke, staid on the roof, one eye on the banks, when he could see them, and the other on the young man at the wheel, finally called up and wanted to know if I did not think we had better feel our way ashore and tie up until the storm abated, even at the risk of being late in getting back to Prescott to take up our regular trip in the morning. I was shivering so that my teeth chattered, and the captain would have been fully justified in assuming that I was shaking as much from fear as from cold. I had a deal of pride in those days, however, and a fair allowance of inherited courage, with perhaps a dash of pig-headedness. I did not wish to have it bulletined from one end of the river to the other that the first time I was left in charge of a steamboat, I had hunted a tree to tie up to because it happened to thunder and rain a little. That would have been the popular version of the incident, in any case. I replied, therefore, that if Captain Gray would send his waiter up with a glass of brandy, I would take the steamer to Hudson levee before taking out a line, and from there to Stillwater and back to Prescott in time for our morning run. The captain said nothing, then or thereafter, but sent his "boy" up with the brandy. This was applied inwardly, and served to take the chill off.
Thus fortified—temperance people will please not be horrified at this depravity of a nineteen-year-old novice, under such extraordinary provocation—I worked around "Catfish" and followed along the west shore as far as Lakeland. From Lakeland across the lake to the Hudson levee, is about three-quarters of a mile. It was still blowing a gale, and the rain came down in torrents, so that the opposite shore could not be seen—in fact one could not distinguish an object ten rods ahead. I had felt my way along, sometimes under the "slow bell", until the present. I must now cut loose from the west shore, and make the crossing to Hudson. There was plenty of water everywhere; but I could not see any landmarks on the opposite side of the lake. I got a stern bearing, however, and headed across. In a minute's time I could see nothing, either ahead or astern, and having no compass I had to rely on the "feel" of the rudders to tell me which way she was swinging. As it turned out, this was of little value, owing to the strength of the wind. For five minutes I ran under full head, and then slowed, trying to get a glimpse of the east bank, and "find myself". When I did, the "H. S. Allen" was headed squarely down the lake, and fully a mile below the Hudson landing. The force of the wind on the chimneys had turned her bow down-wind and downstream. As the rain began to slacken and I could see my marks, it took but a few minutes to straighten her up and make the run to the landing.
On leaving Hudson there were two ways of running the big bar opposite and below the mouth of Willow River. One, the longest, was to cross back to Lakeland and then run up the west shore—all of it straight work. The other, was to run squarely out into the middle of the lake, turn north and run half a mile, then quartering west-north-west across the lake to the opposite shore. This crossing saved a mile or more of steaming over the other course; but it was crooked and narrow, and the possibility of hanging up was much greater. Captain Gray asked me, when backing out, which crossing I would make. I replied that I was going to take the upper to save time. He said nothing, but again took his place by the bell. He made no suggestion, nor offered any opinion as to my decision. That was a part of the river etiquette, which he adhered to even in the case of a boy; for which I sincerely thanked him in my inner being, while accepting it outwardly quite as a matter of course—which it would have been, with an older and more experienced man at the wheel.
I made the crossing without calling for leads, or touching bottom, and the rest of the way was easy. When we made Stillwater the stars were out, and the storm-clouds hung low on the southern horizon. I went below and got into dry clothes, and had a few hours sleep while the freight was being put ashore. Along about two o'clock in the morning I started back, with the mate on the roof. In confidence he confided to me the gratifying news that the "old man says you're all right. He says that you've got nerve enough to last you through". As "nerve" was one of the things needed in the business, I was certainly proud that my night's work, alone on a heavily-loaded boat, in one of the worst of storms, had given me a standing with the "old man"; and I felt reasonably certain that his report would carry weight among the river men who might chance to discuss the merits of the young "cub", and his equipment for serious work.
I may, I hope, be pardoned for dwelling at such length upon an incident of such common occurrence on the river as to attract little or no attention when the man at the wheel was an old and experienced pilot. But this was my "trying-out" time, which made a difference. Even if no one else ever gave the incident a second thought, I should have felt the shame of it to this day, had I "craw-fished" on that first trial.
I have never seen or heard anything to compare with the storms we used to have on the river. The river men had a theory of their own—not very scientific, and probably without foundation in fact—that the vapors from the lowlands and islands formed clouds which were more than ordinarily charged with electricity. Why they should be more highly charged than vapors arising from lowlands or islands elsewhere, they did not attempt to explain, and could not had they attempted. The fact remains, that our thunder storms were something out of the ordinary, and were so regarded by people from the East who experienced them for the first time. Many steamboats were struck by lightning, but few were burned, the electrical bolt being diffused through the iron of the boilers and machinery, and finding ready escape through the water-wheel shafts into the river. I have heard it stated that engineers have often received serious shocks from bolts thus passing from the chimneys to the water, by way of the machinery, but I never heard of one being killed. I do know that when these pyrotechnics were going on, the engineers kept their hands off the throttle-wheel, except in cases of dire necessity. The pilot was seemingly in more, but really less danger than the engineers. However, under such circumstances, a man had to hang on to his nerve as well as his wheel; and I doubt if many pilots ever became so hardened as not to feel "creepy" when the storm was on.
Chapter XIV
Early Pilots
"How did the first steamboats find their way up the hundreds of miles of water heretofore unbroken by steam-driven wheel?" No voice out of the past will give an answer to this query. The imagination of the trained pilot, however, needs no written page to solve the problem of how it might have been done; and he can picture to himself the satisfaction, akin to joy, of the man at the wheel, picking his way amid the thousand islands and snag-infested channels innumerable, guided only by his power to read the face of the water, and his knowledge of the basic principles that govern the flow of all great rivers. Standing thus at his wheel, with new vistas of stream and wood and bluff opening to him as he rounded each successive bend, choosing on the instant the path as yet uncharted; unhampered by time-honored "landmarks", with "all the world to choose from", none might be so envied as he. But we will never know who had this pleasure all his own.
In thus picturing the passage of pioneer steamboats up the Mississippi, there is danger that we may inject into the scene the image of the modern floating palace, with her three decks, her tall chimneys, her massive side-wheels, her "Texas", and her pilot house, fully equipped with spars, gang planks, jack staff, and all the paraphernalia of the beautiful and speedy "packets" of our day. Upon no such craft, however, did the early navigators pick their way into the solitudes of the upper river. Their boats were little better than the keel boats which they superseded—in fact they were keel boats operated by steam. The cargo-box afforded shelter for passengers, merchandise, and machinery. There was no pilot house in which to stand, fifty feet above the water, from that height to study the river bottom. The steersman stood at the stern, and manipulated his tiller by main strength and awkwardness, while the captain stood at the bow and studied the river, and gave his orders to "port" or "starboard", as the case required. As the boat drew less than three feet of water, the necessity for fine judgment in choosing the channel was not as necessary as in guiding a craft drawing twice as much. Nevertheless, it did call for judgment and decision; and these qualities were inherent in the men who made the navigation of Western waters their occupation in the early decades of the nineteenth century.