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 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 Butte 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 worshipers to their idol, the Sphinx.  Before it stood the awful sacrificial stone, whereon quivered the bodies of victims while priests tore open their breasts and offered their throbbing hearts in the sacred fire on the altar, a sacrifice to their cruel god.  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 analytical assays.