“Yes. That’s worse than snags and bars; and when you have had one boat burned under you, you’ll never want to see a spark of fire again as long as you live. I don’t see why folks patronize such a tub as this, anyhow, and they wouldn’t if they knew as much as I do. She is a rotten old hulk, and when she is under way she shakes as if she was about to fall to pieces. She’s got a cabin full of passengers, a cargo worth sixty thousand dollars in the hold, and the captain owns a big share in it. More than that: the boat is insured for thirty thousand dollars, and she isn’t worth ten.”
“Well?” said George.
“Well,” repeated the pilot, “it is a singular fact that every boat, and two or three valuable cargoes in which Captain Chamberlain has been interested, have come to some bad end. Now mark my words, George: The old Sam Kendall has run out the full length of her rope. She’ll lay her bones between here and St. Louis.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed George. “I know why you say that. There isn’t a word of truth in it.”
“George,” said Mr. Black, solemnly, “I am a good deal older than you are, and know just what I am talking about. Now you know why I don’t want to trust you alone with the wheel. But I’m pretty hungry, that’s a fact, and would like a cup of coffee.”
“The lunch is all ready. Bob and I have just come up from there.”
“Then I guess I’ll run down for just a minute, and while I am gone don’t you let that wheel go out of your hands for anybody except Ed. Scanlan. Do your hear?”
“I do,” replied George, as he laid hold of the spokes, “and I’ll remember, too.”
Mr. Black went out of the pilot-house, and Bob and George were left to themselves. The former was in his glory now. He loved a steamboat, as some boys love a horse, and others love a dog and gun. A sense of the responsibility that rested on him made his heart thrill. There was that big steamer, swaying and groaning as she tore up the river as fast as her powerful engines could send her, a hundred and more passengers sleeping quietly in their berths below, sixty thousand dollars worth of freight stowed away on the lower deck and in the hold, and this mighty craft, with her cargo of precious lives and valuable property, was in his keeping, and moved obedient to the slightest motion of his puny arm. What confusion he could create, and what a waste of life and money he could cause in one short minute, if he chose to do so!
“Now, Bob, isn’t this glorious?” exclaimed George, with great enthusiasm.