y's testimony places the apprenticeship at eighteen
months]--Bixby had returned by this time, and they were again together,
first on the Crescent City, later on a fine new boat called the New Falls
City. Clemens was still a steersman when Bixby returned; but as soon as
his license was granted (September 9, 1858) his old chief took him as
full partner.

He was a pilot at last. In eighteen months he had packed away in his
head all the multitude of volatile statistics and acquired that
confidence and courage which made him one of the elect, a river
sovereign. He knew every snag and bank and dead tree and reef in all
those endless miles between St. Louis and New Orleans, every cut-off and
current, every depth of water--the whole story--by night and by day. He
could smell danger in the dark; he could read the surface of the water as
an open page. At twenty-three he had acquired a profession which
surpassed all others for absolute sovereignty and yielded an income equal
to that then earned by the Vice-President of the United States. Boys
generally finish college at about that age, but it is not likely that any
boy ever finished college with the mass of practical information and
training that was stored away in Samuel Clemens's head, or with his
knowledge of human nature, his preparation for battle with the world.

"Not only was he a pilot, but a good one." These are Horace Bixby's
words, and he added:

"It is the fashion to-day to disparage Sam's piloting. Men who were born
since he was on the river and never saw him will tell you that Sam was
never much of a pilot. Most of them will tell you that he was never a
pilot at all. As a matter of fact, Sam was a fine pilot, and in a day
when piloting on the Mississippi required a great deal more brains and
skill and application than it does now. There were no signal-lights
along the shore in those days, and no search-lights on the vessels;
everything was blind, and on a dark, misty night in a river full of snags
and shifting sand--bars and changing shores, a pilot's judgment had to be
founded on absolute certainty."

He had plenty of money now. He could help his mother with a liberal
hand, and he did it. He helped Orion, too, with money and with advice.
From a letter written toward the end of the year, we gather the new
conditions. Orion would seem to have been lamenting over prospects, and
the young pilot, strong and exalted in his new estate, urges him to
renewed consistent e