"But if I had been in your place," said he, "with full right
to do as I pleased, I would not have let those men go away. I
would have set them to work in some place where there would be no
danger of getting water,--at least, for a long time,--and then
you would have found out what are the deeper treasures of your
land."
Having finished my well, I now set about getting the water
into my residence near by. I built a house over the well and put
in it a little engine, and by means of a system of pipes, like
the arteries and veins of the human body, I proposed to
distribute the water to the various desirable points in my house.
The engine was the heart, which should start the circulation,
which should keep it going, and which should send throbbing
through every pipe the water which, if it were not our life, was
very necessary to it.
When all was ready we started the engine, and in a very short
time we discovered that something was wrong. For fifteen or
twenty minutes water flowed into the tank at the top of the
house, with a sound that was grander in the ears of my wife and
myself than the roar of Niagara, and then it stopped.
Investigation proved that the flow had stopped because there
was no more water in the well.
It is needless to detail the examinations, investigations,
and the multitude of counsels and opinions with which our minds
were filled for the next few days. It was plain to see that
although this well was fully able to meet the demands of a hand-
pump or of bailing buckets, the water did not flow into it as
fast as it could be pumped out by an engine.
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