The blast of the whistle apprised them of a landing in sight and soon they picked it out, as much by the great piles of firewood as by any other sign. This was the little hamlet of St. Charles, and here came on board several plainsmen and voyageurs who, having missed the packet at St. Louis, had hastened across the neck of land to board it here. As soon as the gangplank touched the bank a hurrying line of men depleted the great wood pile, and in a few minutes the landing stage swung aboard again and the _Missouri Belle_ circled out into mid-channel, a stream of sparks falling astern. An annoying wind had been blowing when they left the parent stream, annoying in a way a stranger to the river never would have dreamed. There being no permanence to the channels, no fixity to the numerous bars, no accurate knowledge covering the additions to the terrible, destroying snags lurking under the surface, the pilot literally had to read his way every yard and to read it anew every trip. All he had to go by was the surface of the water, and it told him a true tale as long as it was reasonably placid. From his high elevation he looked down into the river and learned from it where the channel lay; and from arrow-head ripples and little, rolling wavelets, where the snags were, for every one close enough to the surface to merit attention was revealed by the telltale "break" on the water. Let a moderate wind blow and his task became harder and more of a gamble; but even then, knowing that the waves run higher over deeper water, he still could go ahead; but above a certain strength the wind not only baffled his reading, but gave such a sidewise drift to the shallow-draft, high-riding vessel that he could not hope to take it safely through some of the narrower channels. Rain or hail, which turned the surface into a uniform area of disturbance, instantly closed his book; and in this event he had no recourse except to lie snugly moored to the south bank and wait until the weather conditions changed. Sometimes these waits were for a few hours, sometimes for a day or more; and when the persistent southwest prairie gales blew day and night, moving great clouds of sand with them, the boat remained a prisoner until they ceased or abated. There was good reason for choosing that south bank, for the stronger winds almost invariably came from that direction during the navigation season, and the bank gave a pleasing protection. While lying moored, idleness in progress did not mean idleness all around, for the boilers ate up great quantities of wood, and in many cases the fuel yards were the growing trees and windfalls on the banks. Once the boat was moored the crew leaped ashore and became wood-choppers, filling the fuel boxes and stacking the remainder on shore for future use. In a pinch green cottonwood sometimes had to be used, but it could be burned only by adding pitch or resin.