CHAPTER X.
AT THE SHRINE OF A "SPHINX OF AZTLAN"
Not a drop of rain had fallen on us since we left the Rio Grande, thedays were as summer in a northern climate, but the nights were quitechill, the effect of an altitude of five thousand feet above sea level.The country had lost its appearance of loneliness, for we passedseveral parties of miners and heard the heavy booming of giant powderat intervals, and from various directions all through the day.
We were joined by a jolly party of miners who were eager for news andcamped with us over night. There were three men in this outfit.Keen-looking, hearty old chaps with ruddy faces and gray beards, theylooked like men who are continually prospecting for the "main chance."I passed a delightful evening in their company. They said they ownedrich silver mines farther up on Lynx Creek, and had come out from townto perform the annual assessment work on their claims, as prescribed bythe laws of the United States, in order to hold possession and perfectlegal title to the ground. As I was not versed in matters pertaining tothe mines, I asked why they did not work their mines continually forthe silver. They explained that they could not work to good advantagefor lack of transportation facilities which made it very difficult andcostly to bring in machinery for developing their prospects into mines.Therefore, until the advent of railroads they chose to perform theirannual assessment work only.
Two of these gentlemen were substantial business men and the other wastheir confidential secretary or affidavit man. It was his duty to makean affidavit before a magistrate that his employers had performed thelabor required by law, which is not less than one hundred dollars perclaim and incidentally he cooked for the outfit and attended to thehorses. Of course, they might have hired mine laborers to do this work,but they said they enjoyed the outing and exercise, especially as thiswas the time of house cleaning and they were glad to get away fromhome. "Yes," affirmed the affidavit man, "and so are your wives."
These gentlemen rode horses and carried a supply of provisions on apack mule. The most conspicuous object of their pack was a keg labelled"dynamite." When the clerk placed this dangerous thing near the fireand sat on it, I became fidgety, but was reassured when subsequently Isaw him draw the stopper and fill a bottle labelled "Old Crow" from it.They advised me to go prospecting and gave me much valuable informationand kindly offered to sell me a prospecting outfit, "for cash," attheir stores.
As we were chatting, I became aware of a delicious, pungent odor, likethe perfume of orange blossoms. "Is it possible," said I, astonished,"that there are orange groves in bloom in this vicinity?" The oldgentlemen said they did not smell anything wrong, but the clerk jumpedto his feet and sniffed the air in the direction of Prescott. "Why,gentlemen," said he, "of course, you cannot smell any further than theblossoms on the tips of your noses, but the young man has a sharpproboscis, he scents the girls. Here comes Dan bound for the SilverBell Mine with his blooming show." We heard the clatter of hoofs andwheels and saw a large coach pass by, crowded with passengers, mostlyladies. The clerk said that the genial owner of the Silver Bell Mine,who was also the proprietor of a popular resort in town, was going outto pay his miners their monthly wage. "That is it," said one of themerchants, "and to keep the boys from leaving the mine in order tospend their money at his resort in town, he takes his variety show outthere. He cannot afford to have his mine shut down just now, as theyhave struck horn silver, and that is the kind of tin he needs in hisbusiness."
These kind old gentlemen cautioned me to keep away from a dark-looking,broken mountain, looming to the north. "That country is no good," theysaid; "there is nothing but copper there, even the water is poisonedwith it." Those were the black hills where there is now the prosperoustown of Jerome and one of the great mines of the earth, the famousUnited Verde Mine, the property of Senator William Clark.
The following day, about noon, we rounded a sharp bend of the road andFort Whipple and the town of Prescott came into view. A pretty andgratifying sight truly, but imagine my astonishment! Here to the rightwas the identical mysterious hill which I had seen in that memorablenight from the height of the Mogollon mesa and behind it was the blackrange, the Sierra Prieta, which had formed a part of the encirclinghorseshoe.
Never in my lifetime have I come to a town where the people were ashospitable and kindly disposed toward strangers as here. It is nowonder that I got no farther, for here the people vied with each otherto welcome the wayfarer to the gates of their city. The town was thenyoung and isolated. The inhabitants had come by teams or horseback fromas far away as the State of Kansas, where the nearest railwayconnection was eastward, or from California, via Yuma and Ehrenberg onthe Colorado River. Stages and freight teams made regular trips acrossthe arid desert to Ehrenberg. The first settlers of this region camefrom California in search of gold. They first found it in the sands ofthe Hassayampa, which is born of mighty Mount Union, the mother of fourliving streams. From its deathbed in the hot sands of the desert, theytraced the precious waters to its source. Gold they found in plentywith hardship and privation. They encountered a band of hostileIndians, and hardest to bear, a loneliness made sufferable only by theillusive phantasies of the golden fever. Their expectations realized,the majority of these pioneers returned to the Golden State andcivilization with the burden of their treasure, saying they had notcome to Arizona for their health. Now in these present days there comesa throng of people in quest of health solely, and many are they whofind its blessing in the sunny and bracing air of this climate, in hotsprings and the balmy breath of the fir and juniper of our mountains. Ifound employment in a mercantile establishment of this little miningtown and grew up with the country, as the saying is. I formed newacquaintances and made new friends. Among others, I met William OwenO'Neill. I cannot now remember the exact time or year. Attracted by thelight-hearted, cheerful, and dare-devil spirit of this ambitious andcultured young man, I joined a military organization, of which he wasthen a lieutenant and later the captain, this was Company F of PrescottGrays, National Guard of Arizona. Poor, noble-hearted, generousBuckie--he knew it not, but this was his first step on the path ofglory leading to the altar of patriotism whereon he laid his life. Itwas he who, with a poet's inspiration, first divined the mystery of themountain which I have before alluded to. He likened this beautifulmound to a sleeping lion who guarded the destinies of the mountaincity. Poor friend, his glorious song stirred the dormant life in themetallic veins of the Butte and, wonder of wonders, the sleeping lionawoke, the poet's lay had brought the Sphinx to life--the die of fatewas cast and he had sealed his doom! When I read his beautiful poem, Igasped in wonder, for only I on earth fathomed the significance of thisrevelation. This dream of a poet's fanciful soul, soaring on the wingsof Pegasus, was stern reality to me and anxiously I awaiteddevelopments. Nor waited I in vain.
The grateful Sphinx showered honor and wealth upon my friend. Thegenerous sportive boy, who cared naught for gold, actually grew rich,for the Sphinx had granted him the most lucrative office in the county,the people made him their sheriff. He rose step by step to the highestplace of honor in the community until he became the mayor of Prescott.Not satisfied with this token of its favor, the Sphinx rewarded him ina most extraordinary and convincing manner. By the help of nature, itshelp-meet, it transformed a great deposit of siliceous limestone intobeautiful onyx and painted it in all the colors and after the patternof the rainbow. This magnificent gift made Captain O'Neillindependently rich, but it is a fact that as soon as it passed from hishands, the stone lost in value and no one has since profited from it. Ibelieve that our hero would have risen to the highest position ofdignity on earth, the Presidency of the United States, if he had notunwittingly aroused the jealousy of the terrible heathen god. When hechose a wife from the lovely maidens of Prescott, then the vengefulSphinx laid its sinister plans for his undoing, for it is in the natureof cats, small or great, to be exceedingly jealous. The furious idolremembered the people of a long forgotten race, its loyal subjects, whohad reared and worshiped it, inconce
ivably long ago, when the GrandCanyon of Arizona was but a tiny ravine and before icy avalanches hadground the rocks at the Dells into boulders. It remembered thedescendants of its subjects, the Aztec Indians. It remembered how theSpaniards had cruelly broken the Aztec nation. Through the subtleinfluence of psychic forces, it stirred up a passion of hate for Spainin the hearts of the people of the United States, and it fostered theawful spirit of strife, and at the right moment it let loose the dogsof war. One convulsive touch of its rocky claws on the hidden currentscoursing in earth's veins and an evil spark fired the fatal mine underthe battleship Maine, in the harbor of Havana.
"Is this possible; can this be true?" If not, why is it that at thecall to arms, even before the nation rallied from the shock of thecowardly deed which sacrificed the lives of inoffensive sailors--why isit, I say, that from under the very paws of the Sphinx, so far away inArizona--and at the call of Captain O'Neill, the noble mayor ofPrescott, there arose the first contingent of fighting volunteers inour war with Spain? The inexorable Sphinx had resolved to grant to ourbeloved and honored friend its last and most exalted gift, a hero'sdeath on the field of battle. It has graven the name of Prescott, thecity of the Sphinx, on scrolls of everlasting fame, as the town whichrallied first to the call of the President and as the only town whichgave the life of its mayor, its first, its most honored citizen, to thenation.
On the isle of Cuba, in the battle of San Juan Hill, fell the gallantCaptain William Owen O'Neill of the regiment of Rough Riders. Peace tohis ashes!
I have been told the circumstances surrounding his death by friends,who were soldiers of his company. They were lying under cover behindevery available shelter to dodge a hailstorm of Mauser bullets,awaiting the order to advance. Captain O'Neill exposed himself and wasinstantly killed. How could he avoid it? How could it have beenotherwise? What can keep an Irishman down in the ditch when bullets areflying in air, "murmuring dirges" and "shells are shrieking requiems?"You may readily imagine an Irishman on the firing line, poking his headabove the ground, exclaiming: "Did yez see that? And where did thatDago pill come from now? Shure it spoke Spanish, but it did not hit meat all, at all, Begorra!"
The activity of the Sphinx ended not with the battle of San Juan Hill,for it cast the luster of its glorious power on the gallant LieutenantColonel of the famous regiment of Rough Riders, Theodore Roosevelt, andon him it conferred in time the greatest honor to be achieved on earth,it made him President of the United States of America. Not knowing it,perhaps, he still is at the time of this writing in the sphere ofinfluence and in the power of the Sphinx and is doing its bidding. Elsewhy should he, as is well known, favor the jointure of New Mexico andArizona into one State? Surely the loyal subjects of the Sphinx, thePueblo Indians of Aztec blood, live mostly in New Mexico, and thecunning idol plans to deliver them out of the hands of the SpanishMexicans, and place them under the protection and care of the Americansof Arizona, knowing full well that the Anglo-Saxon blood will rule.
Every miner and prospector of Arizona knows that there have been, andare found to this day nuggets of pure gold and silver on the summit ofbarren hills, in localities and under geological conditions which arenot to be reckoned as possible natural phenomena. Whence came thegolden nuggets on the summit of Rich Hill at Weaver, where a party ofmen gathered two hundred thousand dollars worth in a week's time?Whence came the isolated great chunk of silver at Turkey Creek, valuedat many thousands? The wisest professor of geology and expert of minescannot explain it. This, I say, is the gold and silver from ornamentsemployed in temples of the idols of ancient races, who livedunthinkable thousands of years ago. The very stones of their templeshave crumbled and been decomposed, but the precious metal has beenformed into nuggets, according to the natural laws of molecularattraction, and under the impulse of gravity and in obedience to thelaws of affinity of matter.
People from Prescott in their rambles in the vicinity of Thumb Buttehave probably noticed a slag pile as comes from a furnace. I have heardthem theorize and argue on the question of its origin or use, as thereis not a sign of ore in existence thereabouts to indicate a smeltingfurnace. I say this was an altar erected I by the ancient worshipers totheir idol, the Sphinx. Before it stood the awful sacrificial stone,whereon quivered the bodies of victims while priests tore open theirbreasts and offered their throbbing hearts in the sacred fire on thealtar, a sacrifice to their cruel god. Many prospectors haveundoubtedly traced a blood red vein of rock coursing from this placetoward Willow Creek--a valuable lode of cinnabar, they must havethought. If they had tested the ore for quicksilver, they would havereceived discouraging results. Porphyry stained with an unknownpetrified substance and without a trace of metal invariably read theanalytical assays.
This is the innocent, petrified blood of victims which stained a ledgeof porphyry when it ran down the mountain side in torrents, an awfulsacrifice to the ancient idols of lust and ignorance. A kindly warningto you, fellow-prospectors and miners, who delve in the vitals ofMother Earth! Beware Thumb Butte, beware the district of the Sphinx!Have a care, for you know not what you may encounter in this mysticneighborhood! Shun strange gods and set up no idols in your hearts, asyou value the salvation of your souls. But if your mine lies in thisdistrict, be fearful not to excite the anger of the gnomes of themountain. Charge lightly, lest you blast the bottom out of your mine.Disturb not the slumber of the spirits of the hills lest they throw ahorse into the shaft and push your pay-ore down a thousand feet.
Now, I who am what I am, a servant of the Sphinx, have erected theshrine of my household gods in the beautiful town, which lies in itsshadow and is held in its paw. Even now is the Sphinx weaving on theweb of my destiny. I hope I may be spared the cumbersome burden of thewealth of a Rockefeller, who is said to possess a billion dollars forevery hair on his head. One thousandth part of his wealth would sufficeto reward me amply.
I received a message in a dream, in a vision of the night, a promisefrom the Sphinx. I fancied that I was on Lynx Creek, sitting on thewindlass at the shaft of my silver mine. This mine is within a mile ofthe place where we had camped and met the party of miners. I had workedthe mine with profit until I met, through no fault of mine, with afault in the mine and encountered a horse in the formation whichfaulted the ground in such a manner as to interrupt the pay chute andto make further work unprofitable.
While I sat there, lighting my pipe and blessing my luck, I saw a blacktomcat come along and jump my claim. As I have always detested claimjumpers, I threw a rock at him and with an uncanny mee-ow and bristlingtail he disappeared down the mine. When I went to the spot where he hadscratched, after the fashion of cats, probably preparing to build hislocation monument and place his notice, I was thunderstruck to see thatthe rock I had thrown at him had been transformed into a chunk of puregold. Surely where that cat jumped into the mine, there lies a bonanza,there shall I sink to the water level.
From the time of my youth have I always possessed great bodily strengthand physical endurance, combined with good health, and now, I am, ifanything, stronger in body than ever and I am blessed with theidentical passions and thoughts I harbored in the days of my youth. Tome this signifies that my life's real task is now beginning, the Sphinxis fitting me for glorious work. What and where, I care not; butambitious hope leads me on, past wealth and power to visions of atemple of divine, pictorial art. Fain would I guide my light, frivolousthoughts long enough into the calm channels of serious reflection tobid you, my kind readers, a dignified farewell and express the sincerehope that, when we have prospected life's mortal vein to the end oftime and our souls soar on the last blast of Gabriel's trumpet toshining sands on shores of bliss eternal.
Tales of Aztlan; The Romance of a Hero of Our Late Spanish-American War, Incidents of Interest from the Life of a Western Pioneer and Other Tales Page 10