Therefore pilots wisely train these cubs by various strategic tricks to look danger in the face a little more calmly.

A favorite way of theirs is to play a friendly swindle upon the candidate.
Mr.Bixby served me in this fashion once, and for years afterward I used to blush even in my sleep when I thought of it.

I had become a good steersman; so good, indeed, that I had all the work to do on our watch, night and day; Mr.Bixby seldom made a suggestion to me; all he ever did was to take the wheel on particularly bad nights or in particularly bad crossings, land the boat when she needed to be landed, play gentleman of leisure nine-tenths of the watch, and collect the wages.

The lower river was about bank-full, and if anybody had questioned my ability to run any crossing between Cairo and New Orleans without help or instruction, I should have felt irreparably hurt.

The idea of being afraid of any crossing in the lot, in the DAY-TIME, was a thing too preposterous for contemplation.