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 lust and ignorance.  A kindly warning to you, fellow-prospectors and miners, who delve in the vitals of Mother Earth!  Beware Thumb Butte, beware the district of the Sphinx!  Have a care, for you know not what you may encounter in this mystic neighborhood!  Shun strange gods 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 gods 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 cumbersome 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 windlass 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 fashion 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 passions 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 shining sands on shores of bliss eternal.