During his clerkship in Offut’s store Lincoln continued to read and study and made considerable progress in grammar and mathematics. Offut failed in business and disappeared from the village. In the language of Lincoln he “petered out,” and his tall, muscular clerk had to seek other employment. ASSISTANT PILOT ON A STEAMBOAT. In his first public speech, which had already been delivered, Lincoln had contended that the Sangamon river was navigable, and it now fell to his lot to assist in giving practical proof of his argument. A steamboat had arrived at New Salem from Cincinnati, and Lincoln was hired as an assistant in piloting the vessel through the uncertain channel of the Sangamon river to the Illinois river. The way was obstructed by a milldam. Lincoln insisted to the owners of the dam that under the Federal Constitution and laws no one had a right to dam up or obstruct a navigable stream and as he had already proved that the Sangamon was navigable a portion of the dam was torn away and the boat passed safely through. “CAPTAIN LINCOLN” PLEASED HIM. At this period in his career the Blackhawk War broke out, and Lincoln was one of the first to respond to Governor Reynold’s call for a thousand mounted volunteers to assist the United States troops in driving Blackhawk back across the Mississippi. Lincoln enlisted in the company from Sangamon county and was elected captain. He often remarked that this gave him greater pleasure than anything that had happened in his life up to this time. He had, however, no opportunities in this war to perform any distinguished service. Upon his return from the Blackhawk War, in which, as he said afterward, in a humorous speech, when in Congress, that he “fought, bled and came away,” he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Legislature. This was the only time in his life, as he himself has said, that he was ever beaten by the people. Although defeated, in his own town of New Salem he received all of the two hundred and eight votes cast except three. FAILURE AS A BUSINESS MAN. Lincoln’s next business venture was with William Berry in a general store, under the firm name of Lincoln & Berry, but did not take long to show that he was not adapted for a business career. The firm failed, Berry died and the debts of the firm fell entirely upon Lincoln. Many of these debts he might have escaped legally, but he assumed them all and it was not until fifteen years later that the last indebtedness of Lincoln & Berry was discharged. During his membership in this firm he had applied himself to the study of law, beginning at the beginning, that is with Blackstone. Now that he had nothing to do he spent much of his time lying under the shade of a tree poring over law books, borrowed from a comrade in the Blackhawk War, who was then a practicing lawyer at Springfield. GAINS FAME AS A STORY TELLER.