Jake, the Colorado Circus Boy

Jumping Jake, the Colorado Circus Boy; or, The Wicked Man of Slashaway Bar by Bryant Bainbridge, from Beadle and Adams' weekly No. 403, serialized adventure fiction. The narrative establishes a murder plot: the tall, sinister Chapman and Hendrix, advance-agent for "Strong, Smith & Drinkwater's Combined European, African, and American Mastodon Circus," scheme to kill the gifted acrobat Jake Morrill (billed as "Jacopo Campani, the Unrivaled Acrobat"). They plan to sabotage his signature stunt—a double somersault over an open tiger cage—by replacing the springboard with a weakened version, causing him to fall into the hungry tigers below. Jake, described as a bright-faced, keen-eyed youth of seventeen or eighteen, arrives with the circus to the mining town of Slashaway Bar. That evening, a mysterious note from Idalah Arnold, a girl who works at the Royal Hotel, warns Jake of danger and arranges a secret meeting to reveal the plot against his life.