subordinate steered, he as always at him.

"Here," he would shout, "where are you going now? Pull her down! Pull
her down! Don't you hear me? Dod-derned mud-cat!"

His assistant lost all desire to be obliging to such a person and even
took occasion now and then to stir him up. One day they were steaming up
the river when Brown noticed that the boat seemed to be heading toward
some unusual point.

"Here, where are you heading for now?" he yelled. "What in nation are
you steerin' at, anyway? Deyned numskull!"

"Why," said Sam, in unruffled deliberation, "I didn't see much else I
could steer for, and I was heading for that white heifer on the bank."

"Get away from that wheel! and get outen this pilothouse!" yelled Brown.
"You ain't fit to become no pilot!"

Which was what Sam wanted. Any temporary relief from the carping tyranny
of Brown was welcome.

He had been on the river nearly a year now, and, though universally
liked and accounted a fine steersman, he was receiving no wages. There
had been small need of money for a while, for he had no board to pay;
but clothes wear out at last, and there were certain incidentals. The
Pennsylvania made a round trip in about thirty-five days, with a day or
two of idle time at either end. The young pilot found that he could get
night employment, watching freight on the New Orleans levee, and thus
earn from two and a half to three dollars for each night's watch.
Sometimes there would be two nights, and with a capital of five or six
dollars he accounted himself rich.

"It was a desolate experience," he said, long afterward, "watching there
in the dark among those piles of freight; not a sound, not a living
creature astir. But it was not a profitless one: I used to have
inspirations as I sat there alone those nights. I used to imagine all
sorts of situations and possibilities. Those things got into my books by
and by and furnished me with many a chapter. I can trace the effect of
those nights through most of my books in one way and another."

Many of the curious tales in the latter half of the Mississippi book
came out of those long night-watches. It was a good time to think of
such things.

XXV. LOVE-MAKING AND ADVENTURE

Of course, life with Brown was not all sorrow. At either end of the trip
there was respite and recreation. In St. Louis, at Pamela's there was
likely to be company: Hannibal friends mostly, schoolmates--girls, of
course. At New Orleans he visited f