do it, you shall build his water-mill. His faith in you, his great hope, will be your inspiration. Yonder is the dam, and there is the sluice that is at once for the mill-wheel and the mother ditch of our irrigation system. The poor mill! it has been a sad failure, Juan; the grist is splashed and ruined by the wheel. It is a thing we have not been able to overcome."
"No wonder!" said Juan, smiling as he looked at the clumsy arrangement. "You've got your hopper right against your wheel—how on earth did you ever expect to keep the grist dry?"
"See?" said the Padre Mateo, jubilant, beaming in satisfaction. "Already you prove that Padre Ignacio was not mistaken. If you know nothing of mills, how do you know this? Ah, Juan Molinero, you are the man! He shall have the mill of his heart at last."
"It's plain you've got to move the buhrstones off a distance, and house them against the weather," said Juan, curiously studying the detail of the crude mill. "A long shaft is what you want, padre, connecting the wheel and the buhrs by a little trick called a bevel gear. It's as simple as a clock."
"Hear him!" Padre Mateo applauded, speaking as if to an audience apart. "Juan Molinero is the physician who puts his hand on the ailment of our poor crippled mill; Juan Molinero is the artificer who shall set it turning out a golden stream of flour. Padre Ignacio never had faith in a man to be deceived."
