The Captain’s first service during this time was as assistant pilot on the steamer _St. Charles_, but the boat was burned at Richmond landing, opposite Lexington, Mo., July 2, 1836. He then engaged as pilot on a new boat, the _Kansas_, and ran in the lower river the rest of the season. In the spring of 1837 he shipped as clerk on the steamboat _Boonville_, but this boat was wrecked on a snag early in November near the mouth of the Kansas River, and was lost with a full cargo of government freight. In the spring of 1838 he went as pilot on the _Platte_, a boat built during the previous winter, and the first double-engine boat that ever plied the river. He remained on this boat for two years, mainly on the lower river. He made but one trip to the far upper river, and started, in the fall of 1838, for the Bayou la Fourche, to spend the winter in the sugar trade. The boat had gone scarcely thirty miles below St. Louis when she ran upon a snag, which tore an immense hole in the bottom and caused her to sink immediately. In the spring of 1840 the Captain again entered the service of the American Fur Company as pilot of the steamer _Emily_, which was to make a trip to Fort Union. Before the season was over the company assigned him to work on a new steamboat, the _Trapper_. For some reason the Captain did not like this assignment and refused to accept it. This incensed the company, who considered him bound to serve wherever directed. Neither side would yield, and the Captain forthwith left the service of the company. [Sidenote: THE MORMONS.] During these four years of apprenticeship several incidents of interest occurred, some pertaining to the local history of the country and others of a purely personal character. Captain La Barge saw a good deal of the Mormons, who at this time were undergoing those persecutions in western Missouri which finally drove them from the State. They were frequently on the steamboats, and the Captain at one time or another saw nearly all the leaders, including Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, Orson Hyde, and others. Captain La Barge never liked the appearance or demeanor of Smith, and never believed in his sincerity. He thought more of Rigdon, who was a most pleasant talker and who once preached a sermon on his boat. Captain La Barge’s knowledge of the Mormons and their doings at this time led them to request him, nearly sixty years afterward (1895), to appear for them and give evidence as to their title to the land in Independence, Mo., on which their temple was built. [Sidenote: DANIEL BOONE.]