Tales of Aztlan Part 4

As its servant, at its bidding, I write this, and shall now unfold, and in the course of this narrative give to the world a surprising revelation of the power of ancient Aztec idols, which would be incredible in the light of our twentieth century of Christian civilization if it were not sustained by the evidence of undeniable facts.

Our road led through a hilly country toward the Little Colorado River.

In the distance loomed the San Francisco Mountains, extinct craters which had belched fire and lava long, long ago at the birth of Arizona, when the earth was still in the travail of creation. We forded the Little Colorado at Sunset Crossing, a lonely colony, where a few Mormons were the only inhabitants of a vast area of wilderness. We were headed due west toward a mesa rising abruptly from the plateau which we were then traversing. This mesa was again capped by a chain of lofty peaks, one of the Mogollon mountain ranges. We ascended the towering mesa through the difficult Chavez pa.s.s, which is named after its discoverer, the noted Mexican, Colonel Francisco Chavez, who may be remembered as a representative in Congress of the United States, for the Territory of New Mexico. A day's heavy toil brought us to the summit of the mesa, which was a beautiful place, but unspeakably lonesome. This wonderful highland is a malpais or lava formation and densely covered with a forest of stately pines and mountain juniper.

Strange to say, vegetation thrives incredibly in the rocky lava; a knee-high growth of the most nutritious grama gra.s.ses, indigent to this region, rippled in the breeze like waves of a golden sea and we saw numerous signs of deer, antelope, and turkey. Our road, a mere trail, wound over this plateau, which was a veritable impenetrable jungle in places, a part of the great Coconino forest. Think and wonder! An unbroken forest of ten thousand square miles, it is said to be the most extensive woodland on the face of the globe. This trail was the worst road to travel I have seen or expect ever to pa.s.s over. The wagons moved as s.h.i.+ps tossed on a stormy sea, chuck! chuck! from boulder to boulder, without intermittence. We found delicious spring water about noon and pa.s.sed a most remarkable place later in the day. This must have been the pit of a volcano. A few steps aside from the road you might lean over the precipice and look straight down into a great, round crater, so deep that it made a person dizzy. At the bottom there was a ranch house, a small lake and a cultivated field, the whole being apparently ten acres in area. I looked straight down on a man who was walking near the house and appeared no larger than a little doll and his dog seemed to be the size of a gra.s.shopper, but we heard the dog bark and heard the cackling of hens quite plainly. On one side of this pit there was a break in the formation, which made this curious place accessible by trail.

We had been advised that we would find a natural tank of rain water in the vicinity of this place and camped there at nightfall. We turned our stock out, but our herders did not find the promised water. Our cook reported that there was not a drop of water in camp, as the spigot of his water tank had been loosened by the roughness of the road and all the water was lost. Now this would have been a matter of small consequence if Don Juan had not been taken ill suddenly. He threw himself on the ground and cried for water. "Agua, por Dios!" (Water, for G.o.d's sake) he cried, "or I shall die." "Why, Don Juan," I said, "there is no water here. I advise you to wait till moonrise when the cattle are rested and then leave for the next watering place, which is Beaver Head, at the foot of the mesa; we ought to reach there about ten o'clock to-morrow morning. Surely until then you can endure a little thirst!" "Amiga, I cannot, I am dying," moaned Don Juan, in great distress. As I suspected that he had lost his nerve on the Navajo reservation, I felt greatly annoyed, and when he became frantic in his cries I promised to go down to Beaver Creek to get him a drink of water, for I recalled to mind his little daughter who bid me farewell with these words: "Adios, Senor Americano, I charge you with the care of my padrecito. If you promise me, I know that he will return to me safely."

I set out on my long night-walk, stumbling over rocks and boulders in the darkness. It was a beautiful night, the crisp atmosphere was laden with the fragrant exhalation of the nut pines and junipers and there was not a breath of air stirring. I got down to water at midnight, the time of moonrise, filled my canteen and started on the return trip.

Slowly I reascended the steep mesa, and when I reached the summit I sat down on a rock in a thicket of junipers. The moon had now risen above the trees and cast its dim light over an enchanting scene. The sense of utter loneliness, a homesickness, a feeling of premonition, stole over me, and weirdly I sensed the presence of I knew not what. From the shadows spoke an owl, sadly, anxiously, "Hoo, hoo! Where are you? You!"

and his mate answered him tenderly, seductively, "Tee, hee! Come to me!

Me!"

In the west, far, far away, cl.u.s.tered a range of mountains, spread out like an enormous horse-shoe and in its center arose the form of a solitary hill. In the heavens from the east drifted a white, ragged cloud. The solitary hill seemed to rise high and higher and all the mountains bowed before it. The spectral cloud resolved itself into a terrible vision which enveloped the central hill. Great Heavens! Again I saw the phantom dog and fancied that I heard shrill screams of "Perro, perro, gringo perro!" A crackling noise, a coming shadow, and forward I fell on my face, ever on the alert, ever ready. An unearthly yell and a great body flew over, fierce claws grazing me. Two b.a.l.l.s of fire shone in the bush, but my rifle cracked and a great lion fell in its tracks. I expected my companions to meet me soon, coming my way.

Instead, I found them, after my all-night's walk, snugly camped where I had left them. Don Juan explained that with G.o.d's favor they had found the water soon after I had left them. He said that they had called loud and long after me, but I did not seem to hear.

This day we descended the mesa and entered the valley of the Verde River, one of Arizona's permanent water courses. This valley is cultivated for at least forty miles from its source to where it enters precipitous mountains. We forded the crystal waters of the river at Camp Verde, an army post, and crossed another range of mountains and several valleys into a comparatively open country, and on the night of a day late in November we camped on Lynx Creek, and were then within a half day's travel of our destination.

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, the days were as summer in a northern climate, but the nights were quite chill, the effect of an alt.i.tude of five thousand feet above sea level.

The country had lost its appearance of loneliness, for we pa.s.sed several parties of miners and heard the heavy booming of giant powder at intervals, and from various directions all through the day.

We were joined by a jolly party of miners who were eager for news and camped with us over night. There were three men in this outfit.

Keen-looking, hearty old chaps with ruddy faces and gray beards, they looked like men who are continually prospecting for the "main chance."

I pa.s.sed a delightful evening in their company. They said they owned rich silver mines farther up on Lynx Creek, and had come out from town to perform the annual a.s.sessment work on their claims, as prescribed by the laws of the United States, in order to hold possession and perfect legal t.i.tle to the ground. As I was not versed in matters pertaining to the mines, I asked why they did not work their mines continually for the silver. They explained that they could not work to good advantage for lack of transportation facilities which made it very difficult and costly to bring in machinery for developing their prospects into mines.

Therefore, until the advent of railroads they chose to perform their annual a.s.sessment work only.

Two of these gentlemen were substantial business men and the other was their confidential secretary or affidavit man. It was his duty to make an affidavit before a magistrate that his employers had performed the labor required by law, which is not less than one hundred dollars per claim and incidentally he cooked for the outfit and attended to the horses. Of course, they might have hired mine laborers to do this work, but they said they enjoyed the outing and exercise, especially as this was the time of house cleaning and they were glad to get away from home. "Yes," affirmed the affidavit man, "and so are your wives."

These gentlemen rode horses and carried a supply of provisions on a pack mule. The most conspicuous object of their pack was a keg labelled "dynamite." When the clerk placed this dangerous thing near the fire and sat on it, I became fidgety, but was rea.s.sured when subsequently I saw him draw the stopper and fill a bottle labelled "Old Crow" from it.

They advised me to go prospecting and gave me much valuable information and kindly offered to sell me a prospecting outfit, "for cash," at their stores.

As we were chatting, I became aware of a delicious, pungent odor, like the perfume of orange blossoms. "Is it possible," said I, astonished, "that there are orange groves in bloom in this vicinity?" The old gentlemen said they did not smell anything wrong, but the clerk jumped to his feet and sniffed the air in the direction of Prescott. "Why, gentlemen," said he, "of course, you cannot smell any further than the blossoms on the tips of your noses, but the young man has a sharp proboscis, he scents the girls. Here comes Dan bound for the Silver Bell Mine with his blooming show." We heard the clatter of hoofs and wheels and saw a large coach pa.s.s by, crowded with pa.s.sengers, mostly ladies. 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 out to pay his miners their monthly wage. "That is it," said one of the merchants, "and to keep the boys from leaving the mine in order to spend their money at his resort in town, he takes his variety show out there. He cannot afford to have his mine shut down just now, as they have struck horn silver, and that is the kind of tin he needs in his business."

These kind old gentlemen cautioned me to keep away from a dark-looking, broken mountain, looming to the north. "That country is no good," they said; "there is nothing but copper there, even the water is poisoned with it." Those were the black hills where there is now the prosperous town of Jerome and one of the great mines of the earth, the famous United Verde Mine, the property of Senator William Clark.

The following day, about noon, we rounded a sharp bend of the road and Fort Whipple and the town of Prescott came into view. A pretty and gratifying sight truly, but imagine my astonishment! Here to the right was the identical mysterious hill which I had seen in that memorable night from the height of the Mogollon mesa and behind it was the black range, the Sierra Prieta, which had formed a part of the encircling horseshoe.

Never in my lifetime have I come to a town where the people were as hospitable and kindly disposed toward strangers as here. It is no wonder that I got no farther, for here the people vied with each other to welcome the wayfarer to the gates of their city. The town was then young and isolated. The inhabitants had come by teams or horseback from as far away as the State of Kansas, where the nearest railway connection was eastward, or from California, via Yuma and Ehrenberg on the Colorado River. Stages and freight teams made regular trips across the arid desert to Ehrenberg. The first settlers of this region came from California in search of gold. They first found it in the sands of the Ha.s.sayampa, which is born of mighty Mount Union, the mother of four living streams. From its deathbed in the hot sands of the desert, they traced the precious waters to its source. Gold they found in plenty with hards.h.i.+p and privation. They encountered a band of hostile Indians, and hardest to bear, a loneliness made sufferable only by the illusive phantasies of the golden fever. Their expectations realized, the majority of these pioneers returned to the Golden State and civilization with the burden of their treasure, saying they had not come to Arizona for their health. Now in these present days there comes a throng of people in quest of health solely, and many are they who find its blessing in the sunny and bracing air of this climate, in hot springs and the balmy breath of the fir and juniper of our mountains. I found employment in a mercantile establishment of this little mining town and grew up with the country, as the saying is. I formed new acquaintances and made new friends. Among others, I met William Owen O'Neill. I cannot now remember the exact time or year. Attracted by the light-hearted, cheerful, and dare-devil spirit of this ambitious and cultured young man, I joined a military organization, of which he was then a lieutenant and later the captain, this was Company F of Prescott Grays, National Guard of Arizona. Poor, n.o.ble-hearted, generous Buckie--he knew it not, but this was his first step on the path of glory leading to the altar of patriotism whereon he laid his life. It was he who, with a poet's inspiration, first divined the mystery of the mountain which I have before alluded to. He likened this beautiful mound to a sleeping lion who guarded the destinies of the mountain city. Poor friend, his glorious song stirred the dormant life in the metallic veins of the b.u.t.te and, wonder of wonders, the sleeping lion awoke, the poet's lay had brought the Sphinx to life--the die of fate was cast and he had sealed his doom! When I read his beautiful poem, I gasped in wonder, for only I on earth fathomed the significance of this revelation. This dream of a poet's fanciful soul, soaring on the wings of Pegasus, was stern reality to me and anxiously I awaited developments. Nor waited I in vain.

The grateful Sphinx showered honor and wealth upon my friend. The generous 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 highest place of honor in the community until he became the mayor of Prescott.

Not satisfied with this token of its favor, the Sphinx rewarded him in a most extraordinary and convincing manner. By the help of nature, its help-meet, it transformed a great deposit of siliceous limestone into beautiful onyx and painted it in all the colors and after the pattern of the rainbow. This magnificent gift made Captain O'Neill independently rich, but it is a fact that as soon as it pa.s.sed from his hands, the stone lost in value and no one has since profited from it. I believe that our hero would have risen to the highest position of dignity on earth, the Presidency of the United States, if he had not unwittingly aroused the jealousy of the terrible heathen G.o.d. When he chose a wife from the lovely maidens of Prescott, then the vengeful Sphinx laid its sinister plans for his undoing, for it is in the nature of cats, small or great, to be exceedingly jealous. The furious idol remembered the people of a long forgotten race, its loyal subjects, who had reared and wors.h.i.+ped it, inconceivably long ago, when the Grand Canyon of Arizona was but a tiny ravine and before icy avalanches had ground the rocks at the Dells into boulders. It remembered the descendants of its subjects, the Aztec Indians. It remembered how the Spaniards had cruelly broken the Aztec nation. Through the subtle influence of psychic forces, it stirred up a pa.s.sion of hate for Spain in the hearts of the people of the United States, and it fostered the awful spirit of strife, and at the right moment it let loose the dogs of war. One convulsive touch of its rocky claws on the hidden currents coursing in earth's veins and an evil spark fired the fatal mine under the battles.h.i.+p Maine, in the harbor of Havana.

"Is this possible; can this be true?" If not, why is it that at the call to arms, even before the nation rallied from the shock of the cowardly deed which sacrificed the lives of inoffensive sailors--why is it, I say, that from under the very paws of the Sphinx, so far away in Arizona--and at the call of Captain O'Neill, the n.o.ble mayor of Prescott, there arose the first contingent of fighting volunteers in our war with Spain? The inexorable Sphinx had resolved to grant to our beloved and honored friend its last and most exalted gift, a hero's death on the field of battle. It has graven the name of Prescott, the city of the Sphinx, on scrolls of everlasting fame, as the town which rallied first to the call of the President and as the only town which gave the life of its mayor, its first, its most honored citizen, to the nation.

On the isle of Cuba, in the battle of San Juan Hill, fell the gallant Captain William Owen O'Neill of the regiment of Rough Riders. Peace to his ashes!

I have been told the circ.u.mstances surrounding his death by friends, who were soldiers of his company. They were lying under cover behind every available shelter to dodge a hailstorm of Mauser bullets, awaiting the order to advance. Captain O'Neill exposed himself and was instantly killed. How could he avoid it? How could it have been otherwise? What can keep an Irishman down in the ditch when bullets are flying in air, "murmuring dirges" and "sh.e.l.ls are shrieking requiems?"

You may readily imagine an Irishman on the firing line, poking his head above the ground, exclaiming: "Did yez see that? And where did that Dago pill come from now? Shure it spoke Spanish, but it did not hit me at all, at all, Begorra!"

The activity of the Sphinx ended not with the battle of San Juan Hill, for it cast the l.u.s.ter of its glorious power on the gallant Lieutenant Colonel of the famous regiment of Rough Riders, Theodore Roosevelt, and on 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 of influence and in the power of the Sphinx and is doing its bidding. Else why should he, as is well known, favor the jointure of New Mexico and Arizona into one State? Surely the loyal subjects of the Sphinx, the Pueblo Indians of Aztec blood, live mostly in New Mexico, and the cunning idol plans to deliver them out of the hands of the Spanish Mexicans, and place them under the protection and care of the Americans of Arizona, knowing full well that the Anglo-Saxon blood will rule.

Every miner and prospector of Arizona knows that there have been, and are found to this day nuggets of pure gold and silver on the summit of barren hills, in localities and under geological conditions which are not to be reckoned as possible natural phenomena. Whence came the golden nuggets on the summit of Rich Hill at Weaver, where a party of men gathered two hundred thousand dollars worth in a week's time?

Whence came the isolated great chunk of silver at Turkey Creek, valued at many thousands? The wisest professor of geology and expert of mines cannot explain it. This, I say, is the gold and silver from ornaments employed in temples of the idols of ancient races, who lived unthinkable thousands of years ago. The very stones of their temples have crumbled and been decomposed, but the precious metal has been formed into nuggets, according to the natural laws of molecular attraction, and under the impulse of gravity and in obedience to the laws of affinity of matter.

People from Prescott in their rambles in the vicinity of Thumb b.u.t.te have probably noticed a slag pile as comes from a furnace. I have heard them theorize and argue on the question of its origin or use, as there is not a sign of ore in existence thereabouts to indicate a smelting furnace. I say this was an altar erected I by the ancient wors.h.i.+pers to their idol, the Sphinx. Before it stood the awful sacrificial stone, whereon quivered the bodies of victims while priests tore open their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and offered their throbbing hearts in the sacred fire on the altar, a sacrifice to their cruel G.o.d. Many prospectors have undoubtedly traced a blood red vein of rock coursing from this place toward Willow Creek--a valuable lode of cinnabar, they must have thought. If they had tested the ore for quicksilver, they would have received discouraging results. Porphyry stained with an unknown petrified substance and without a trace of metal invariably read the a.n.a.lytical a.s.says.

This is the innocent, petrified blood of victims which stained a ledge of porphyry when it ran down the mountain side in torrents, an awful sacrifice to the ancient idols of l.u.s.t and ignorance. A kindly warning to you, fellow-prospectors and miners, who delve in the vitals of Mother Earth! Beware Thumb b.u.t.te, beware the district of the Sphinx!

Have a care, for you know not what you may encounter in this mystic neighborhood! Shun strange G.o.ds and set up no idols in your hearts, as you value the salvation of your souls. But if your mine lies in this district, be fearful not to excite the anger of the gnomes of the mountain. Charge lightly, lest you blast the bottom out of your mine.

Disturb not the slumber of the spirits of the hills lest they throw a horse 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 the shrine of my household G.o.ds in the beautiful town, which lies in its shadow and is held in its paw. Even now is the Sphinx weaving on the web of my destiny. I hope I may be spared the c.u.mbersome burden of the wealth of a Rockefeller, who is said to possess a billion dollars for every hair on his head. One thousandth part of his wealth would suffice to reward me amply.

I received a message in a dream, in a vision of the night, a promise from the Sphinx. I fancied that I was on Lynx Creek, sitting on the windla.s.s at the shaft of my silver mine. This mine is within a mile of the place where we had camped and met the party of miners. I had worked the mine with profit until I met, through no fault of mine, with a fault in the mine and encountered a horse in the formation which faulted the ground in such a manner as to interrupt the pay chute and to make further work unprofitable.

While I sat there, lighting my pipe and blessing my luck, I saw a black tomcat come along and jump my claim. As I have always detested claim jumpers, I threw a rock at him and with an uncanny mee-ow and bristling tail he disappeared down the mine. When I went to the spot where he had scratched, after the fas.h.i.+on of cats, probably preparing to build his location monument and place his notice, I was thunderstruck to see that the rock I had thrown at him had been transformed into a chunk of pure gold. 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 strength and physical endurance, combined with good health, and now, I am, if anything, stronger in body than ever and I am blessed with the identical pa.s.sions and thoughts I harbored in the days of my youth. To me this signifies that my life's real task is now beginning, the Sphinx is fitting me for glorious work. What and where, I care not; but ambitious hope leads me on, past wealth and power to visions of a temple of divine, pictorial art. Fain would I guide my light, frivolous thoughts long enough into the calm channels of serious reflection to bid you, my kind readers, a dignified farewell and express the sincere hope that, when we have prospected life's mortal vein to the end of time and our souls soar on the last blast of Gabriel's trumpet to s.h.i.+ning sands on sh.o.r.es of bliss eternal.

AN UNCANNY STONE.

(A sequel to the last chapter of "Wooed by a Sphinx of Astlan."')

"Gigantic shadows, dancing in the twilight Fade with the sun's last golden ray.

On quivering bat-wings, sad and silent, Flits darkness--night pursuing day.

Hark! as the twelfth hour sounds its knell At midnight, tolls a whimpering bell When yawning graves profane their secrecy.

Ghosts stalk in dreamland haunting memory And spectral visions of departed friends arise Who freed of sin, that fetter of mortality, With Angels in their kingdom of Eternal Life Grace Heaven's choir of harmony."

The third day of July A. D. 1907 was a gala-day for the citizens of Prescott, a historic date for Arizona, as then our governor, in behalf of the territory, formally accepted an equestrian statue from its sculptor.

This monument which commemorates our war with Spain had been erected on the public plaza of Prescott in honor of "Roosevelt's Rough Riders,"

the first regiment of United States Volunteer cavalry.

A master-piece of modern art the statue breathes life and action in the perfection of its every detail, representing a Rough Rider who is about to draw his weapon while reining his terrified horse as it rears in a last lunge. This is indicated by the steed's gaping mouth, distended nostrils, the bent knees, knotted chords and veins of its neck and body.

The expression of a n.o.ble beast's agony is rendered in so life-like a manner that its protruding eyes seem to glaze into the awful stare of death, and instinctively the spectator listens for the stifled whimper and whinnying screams of a wounded creature.

Borglum's splendid statuary, this heroic cast of bronze which so faithfully portrays the destiny of a dumb animal, man's most useful and willing slave, always ready to share its master's fate, even unto death--to my mind is a most eloquent, if silent, argument against all warfare.

But the glory of the monument is its pedestal.