San Andreas independent., 1858-12-18
\ Christmas 5torp.
Written for the INDEPENDENT
THE PHANTOM MINER!
BY TOM BLOT.
CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER |.
Tumbletown had no protector. Like many
mountain towns, it arose unplanned and un-
surveyed, with an entire disregard for the or
namentai. Each man had built his habitation
in style and position so Independent of his
neighbor, that no one residence could possibly
be mistaken for another, and no two streets
came within ten degrees of a right angle in
the crossing. Some ofits enteprsing citizens
had recommended survey and Strengthening
of its thoroughfares, but although the propo-
sition was readily endorsed by the propretors
of canvas, and reluctantly promised by the in
habitantS of boards and shingles, it was posi-
lively refused by the adobe population At the
base of the hill, upon the side of which the
town is built, lies Stony Gulch, deep ravine,
so steep and rocky as only to be crossed in
places by the most careful climbing and slid
ing. The crater of an extinct volcano, whose
conglomerate boulders are scattered in every
direction about stands towering in the west,
cheating the inhabitants daily of an hour of
sunshine, giving strange, melancholy to the
departing day, and an uncomfortable gloom to
the twilight. But what matters the forbidding
appearance of Tumbletown, enough for the in
habitants to know, that gold was found there,
and for the reader, that there occurred such
wonderful events as we are about to narrate.
1t was there that Simpkins had " struck it
rich J" there Meineka, the German trader, had
amassed fortune, and there that Krantz, the
money-lender, had accumulated his estate
But such success was not attendant upon all
of its citizens.
quiet old man of sixty winters, with hair
of snowy whiteness, strong and hardy despite
his years, working industriously from morn
till eve, and sinking without assistance, a
shaft, by climbing a ladder with the earth
upon his shoulder should, we think, be a
worthy recipient of fortune. But alas poor
Old Bones, whose disappearance in the body,
and strange return in the spirit, was exciting
the wonder of the town, either died, or was
murdered, or killed himself without having
obtained enough of the precious metal to af-
ford him a decent support. And Mathew Cof-
fin, too-why should he forever dig, and sluice,
and wash, and get SO little gold as barely to
furnish the comforts to himself and his devo-
ted little wife?
Of all the citizens of Tumbletown, Isham
Krantz, though the least worthy, was the most
successful in accumulating wealth. This man,
too lazy to work, had entered the town penni-
less but few years before, and begged for
the situation of teacher in the District School.
His salary being in part, paid by voluntary
subscription, to which he himself was the So
licitor, he was detected in appropriatng,
through the public generosity, an income not
excelled by the most lucrative office in the
State. Upon examing his subscription list, not
more than one-tenth of his contributors were
found placed in the category.
The very next day after Krantz was expelled
from his school, he exhibited sign over his
lodgings" Money to loan" He had no bu-
siness with the prosperous, but dealt exclusive
ly with the unfortunate. He watched his
debtor as the cat watches the mouse, and only
at the time when the unfortunate one was
without funds, did be either pounce upon him
and extort more security and greater interest,
or when it would better suit his avaricious,
swindlng propensity, foreelose and purchase
the estate far below its value.
Krantz built no houses but was the owner
of many. He employed no labor, but had
many industrious hands at work filling his cof-
fers He dug no gold, but had it brought clean
and bright, to feast his delighted eyes and
tickle his sensitive fingers. Why shouldn't he
grow rich in a country where usury is term
obsolete and without definition?