Pilots, then, are important men and are able to charge very high prices for their services (generally rated according to the draft of the vessel), and their profession is so organized and guarded that not only must a man be thoroughly competent, but he must wait for a vacancy in the regular number before he will be admitted to their ranks. Their method of work is very exciting. A dozen or so together will form the crew of a trim, stanch schooner, provisioned for a fortnight or more, which can outsail anything but a racing yacht, and is built to ride safely through the highest seas. A few steamers are coming into use, but the procedure is much the same. You will now and then see one of these beautiful little vessels sailing up the quiet harbor, threading its way through the black steamers and sputtering tug-boats and great ships, as a shy and graceful girl walks among the guests at a lawn party, and you know from its air as well as the big number on its white mainsail that it is a pilot boat, even if it does not carry the regular pilot-flag, which in the United States is simply the “union” or starry canton of the ensign. [Illustration: BURNING A “FLARE” ON A PILOT-BOAT.] But these fine schooners and the brave men they carry are rarely in port. Their time is spent far in the offing of the harbor, cruising back and forth in wait for incoming ships, and the New York pilots often go two and three hundred miles out to sea, and in storms may be blown much farther away. Other pilot-boats are waiting also, and the lookout at the reeling mast-head must keep the very keenest watch upon the horizon. Suddenly he catches sight of a white speck which his practised eye tells him is a ship’s top-sails, or of a blur upon the sky that advertises a steamer’s approach. The schooner’s head is instantly turned toward it, and all the canvas is crowded on that she will bear, for away off at the right a second pilot-boat, well down, is also seen to be aiming at the same point and trying hard to win.