At three o'clock the _Woodville_ started for Port Rock. The party were still in high spirits, and the singing was resumed when the wheels began to turn. On the way down, she stopped at Ticonderoga, while her appearance so delighted a party of pleasure-seekers that she was engaged for another day, and a dinner for twenty spoken for. "Lawry, you must have an engagement-book, or you will forget some of your parties," said Mr. Sherwood, who stood by the pilot, in the wheel-house, when the steamer started. "I have put them all down on a piece of paper, sir. I will get a book when I go to Burlington." "Which will be to-morrow. I had engaged her for four days when you came up with her from Port Henry; but I'm afraid we shall work you too hard." "No fear of that, sir. I only hope I shall be able to pay you that money you advanced this morning." "Don't say a word about that. Let me see: you are engaged in Burlington to-morrow, to me the next day, and in Whitehall on the following day." "I will get a book and put them down, sir." "But you must be in Burlington by eight o'clock tomorrow morning." "We can run up to-night." "You will get no sleep if you run all night." "I think we shall want another fireman." "You will: for in order to keep your engagements you will occasionally have to run nights." At eight o'clock the _Woodville_ landed her passengers at Port Rock, and as the gentlemen went ashore, they gave three cheers for the little steamer and her little captain. CHAPTER XVII BURLINGTON TO ISLE LA MOTTE On his way home, Mr. Sherwood went to the ferry-house and satisfied himself that the mortgage on the place had been canceled. Mrs. Wilford was profuse in the expression of her gratitude to him for his kindness to the family, and hoped that Lawry and his father would be able to pay him back the whole sum. "Mrs. Wilford, so far as gratitude and obligation are concerned, the balance is still largely against me. Millions of dollars would not pay the debt I owe to your son." "Oh, Lawry don't think anything of that, sir!" "But I do. Madam, if your son had been five minutes later than he was when the little steamer went down, Miss Fanny Grant would certainly have been drowned, and my wife would doubtless have shared her fate. And when I think that this exposure of their precious lives was my own fault; that my wife and her sister had nearly perished by my foolish haste and recklessness, I feel like giving every dollar I have in the world to Lawry. You don't understand this matter as I do, Mrs. Wilford." "I didn't think you were in any great danger."