But the great races, extending sometimes for more than a thousand miles up the river, and carefully planned for months in advance, were seldom, if ever, marred by an accident. For then every man on both boats was on the alert, from pilot down to fuel passer. The boat was trimmed by guidance of a spirit level until she rode the water at precisely the draft that assured the best speed. Her hull was scraped and oiled, her machinery overhauled, and her fuel carefully selected. Picked men made up her crew, and all the upper works that could be disposed of were landed before the race, in order to decrease air resistance. It was the current pleasantry to describe the captain as shaving off his whiskers lest they catch the breeze, and parting his hair in the middle, that the boat might be the better trimmed. Few passengers were taken, for they could not be relied upon to "trim ship," but would be sure to crowd to one side or the other at a critical moment. Only through freight was shipped--and little of that--for there would be no stops made from starting-point to goal. Of course, neither boat could carry all the fuel--pine-wood slabs--needed for a long voyage, but by careful prearrangement, great "flats" loaded with wood, awaited them at specified points in midstream. The steamers slowed to half-speed, the flats were made fast alongside by cables, and nimble negroes transferred the wood, while the race went on. At every riverside town the wharves and roofs would be black with people, awaiting the two rivals, whose appearance could be foretold almost as exactly as that of a railway train running on schedule time. The firing of rifles and cannon, the blowing of horns, the waving of flags, greeted the racers from the shores by day, and great bonfires saluted them by night. At some of the larger towns they would touch for a moment to throw off mail, or to let a passenger leap ashore. Then every nerve of captain, pilot, and crew was on edge with the effort to tie up and get away first. Up in the pilot-house the great man of the wheel took shrewd advantage of every eddy and back current; out on the guards the humblest roustabout stood ready for a life-risking leap to get the hawser to the dock at the earliest instant. All the operations of the boat had been reduced to an exact science, so that when the crack packets were pitted against each other in a long race, their maneuvers would be as exactly matched in point of time consumed as those of two yachts sailing for the "America's" cup. Side by side, they would steam for hundreds of miles, jockeying all the way for the most favorable course. It was a fact that often such boats were so evenly matched that victory would hang almost entirely on the skill of the pilot, and where of two pilots on one boat one was markedly inferior, his watch at the wheel could be detected by the way the rival boat forged ahead. During the golden days on the river, there were many of these races, but