water pump?

I started my car last night drove it for about 10 minutes and noticed my temp gauge was almost at 270 I turned on my heater and drove about a quarter mile till I could pull off the road, then the temp started dropping. When I got out I had water leaking from the hoses to the water pump. Checked my rad and it was a little low. I let it cool down started it and drove it home with the heater on and it ran cool the whole way. Any ideas? I put a new thermostat on it sunday.
Thanks for any responses
 
are the hoses on all the way? are there cracks in the hoses? In most cases when the pump goes, the coolant comes out the plug in the water pump. But if you caught it before it did that and the pump is broken I guess it could squeek out a weak hose. Check the hoses out and get back to us.
 
To try to narrow it down a bit: when lookin at the weep hole at the bottom of the pump, you can often see the stains egressing the weep hole. The weeping lets you know that the pump has some bearing wear.

Good luck.