"Where's Gustav?" asked Roger, quickly.
"He's puttering with the Lemon. If you need him, I'll go up for him."
"No, you won't. It seems to me that you need water on the alfalfa badly. The second field is getting pretty yellow."
Charley sighed. "I know it! Roger, that well just isn't adequate. I've told Dick so fifty times. He should have begun work on a driven well, long ago, but he's simply hipped on the powers of this present well. I think that the old thing is going dry."
"You do?" Roger's tone was startled. "Here, there's no hurry on this job. I'm just waiting really for the new parts. Let's go up and have a look at your whole water outfit."
They set off forthwith, the Lemon starting on its uneasy way, just as they reached the pumping shed.
"Something's wrong, certainly," exclaimed Roger, watching the stream of water that came from the pump. "There isn't half the usual stream there. Do you think the pump is all right, Gustav?"
"The pump is new and goot. The vater is low. Sometime, no vater it come at all. Then I vait for it to fill again."
"I don't understand it at all," said Charley. "There is plenty of water in this range. You see that old silver mine, up there?" pointing to an ancient dump on the mountainside back of the house. "Well, the lower level of that has a foot of water in it."
"How does it seem, stagnant?" asked Roger.