Tip Top Weekly No. 61: Frank Merriwell in the Mines

FRANK MERRIWELL IN THE MINES; OR, THE BLIND SINGER OF SILVER BLUFF This issue contains two narratives. The serial "Frank Merriwell in the Mines" opens with a prologue: during a mountain blizzard, an old miner awaits his daughter Nellie, who arrives dying at his cabin door with an infant daughter wrapped in her shawl. Before expiring, Nellie reveals she has fled from a man named Powers, after her brother Victor shot him in a confrontation. She entrusts the blind baby, "Little Blossom," to her father's care, dying as she glimpses the light he has placed in the window. Chapter II shifts locale to the mining camp of Silver Bluff, where five uniformed bicycle riders—Frank Merriwell and friends Harry Rattleton, Bruce Browning, Jack Diamond, and Toots—arrive to the astonishment of rough miners and townsmen gathered at the Golden Eagle Saloon. The issue also includes shorter pieces: "The Emerald Ring," "Throwing the Boomerang," a sports column on putting the shot, and an article on a bicycle-constructed clock.