‘What is the height of that bank yonder, at Burgess’s?’

‘How can I tell, sir.  It is three-quarters of a mile away.’

‘Very poor eye—­very poor.  Take the glass.’

I took the glass, and presently said—­’I can’t tell.  I suppose that that bank is about a foot and a half high.’

’Foot and a half!  That’s a six-foot bank.  How high was the bank along here last trip?’

‘I don’t know; I never noticed.’

‘You didn’t?  Well, you must always do it hereafter.’

‘Why?’

’Because you’ll have to know a good many things that it tells you.  For one thing, it tells you the stage of the river—­tells you whether there’s more water or less in the river along here than there was last trip.’

‘The leads tell me that.’  I rather thought I had the advantage of him there.

’Yes, but suppose the leads lie?  The bank would tell you so, and then you’d stir those leadsmen up a bit.  There was a ten-foot bank here last trip, and there is only a six-foot bank now.  What does that signify?’

‘That the river is four feet higher than it was last trip.’

‘Very good.  Is the river rising or falling?’

‘Rising.’

‘No it ain’t.’

’I guess I am right, sir.  Yonder is some drift-wood floating down the stream.’

’A rise starts the drift-wood, but then it keeps on floating a while after the river is done rising.  Now the bank will tell you about this.  Wait till you come to a place where it shelves a little.  Now here; do you see this narrow belt of fine sediment That was deposited while the water was higher.  You see the driftwood begins to strand, too.  The bank helps in other ways.  Do you see that stump on the false point?’

‘Ay, ay, sir.’

’Well, the water is just up to the roots of it.  You must make a note of that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because that means that there’s seven feet in the chute of 103.’

‘But 103 is a long way up the river yet.’

’That’s where the benefit of the bank comes in.  There is water enough in 103 now, yet there may not be by the time we get there; but the bank will keep us posted all along.  You don’t run close chutes on a falling river, up-stream, and there are precious few of them that you are allowed to run at all down-stream.  There’s a law of the United States against it.  The river may be rising by the time we get to 103, and in that case we’ll run it.  We are drawing—­how much?’

‘Six feet aft,—­six and a half forward.’

‘Well, you do seem to know something.’

’But what I particularly want to know is, if I have got to keep up an everlasting measuring of the banks of this river, twelve hundred miles, month in and month out?’

‘Of course!’

My emotions were too deep for words for a while.  Presently I said—­’

And how about these chutes.  Are there many of them?’