Frank Merriwell's Return to Yale Part 27

A TRICK.

As might be expected, there was a big chorus of shouting when the Yale and Harvard teams came out for their trial in the tug of war.

Matters had been running rather evenly between the four colleges; each had gained at least one first place, and there was no reason for the friends of any college to be discouraged about the general result.

The Harvard men seemed to be as fresh after their victory over Cornell as if they had not exerted themselves.

They appeared to have about the same weight as the Yale crew, and were made up in much the same way; a particularly heavy man as anchor, and three lighter but evidently very muscular fellows upon the rope.

It had been decided that the fall should be at a pistol shot.

As there are several ways of conducting a tug of war, it will be well to explain that in intercollegiate games, when held indoors, the contestants always brace themselves upon cleats.

The rope which they hold lies loose upon the floor between the two teams. At a point midway between the two sets of cleats there is a chalk mark on the floor.

A ribbon is tied around the rope at the point where it crosses this mark.

When the men have fallen it is their object to pull the rope away from their opponents, and so bring that ribbon further and further toward their cleats.

In a closely contested match it sometimes happens that the position of the ribbon will not vary more than two or three inches during the entire tug.

The time is taken, and at the end of four minutes the victory is awarded to whichever team has the ribbon upon its side of the chalk mark.

In this pull with Harvard, Frank's training proved to be of the greatest value. He had laid the greatest stress upon the fall.

When the pistol shot came the Yale team dropped like one man to the general eye.

It seemed as if the Harvard team dropped at exactly the same instant, but when the excited spectators looked at the ribbon on the rope, they saw that it was fully six inches upon the Yale side of the chalk mark.

After the fall there was a silent moment of hard tugging upon each part, but the ribbon did not budge.

Meantime Bruce was manipulating the rope that ran around his belt, and keeping his eyes fixed upon the Harvard anchor opposite.

"How is it, Bruce?" whispered Frank.

"We've got 'em," muttered Bruce, in reply.

Frank said nothing, for in the course of training he and Bruce had discussed this matter so many times that Frank knew well what policy the anchor would pursue.

It is often said that a miss is as good as a mile, and in the case of a tug of war an inch is certainly as good as a yard.

It might have been possible for the Yale team by constant tugging and by occasional surprises to get the ribbon much farther over to their side, but that was not the policy that had been decided on.

If the team should win, there was Princeton still to be pulled, and every ounce of strength would be needed then; so, having the advantage of Harvard, the boys simply held to the rope, using only enough strength to keep what they had gained.

It cost them a good deal of effort to keep it.

About a minute had pa.s.sed since the fall, when the Harvard anchor suddenly gave his men the word, and leaned far back upon the floor.

It was a mighty tug. Slowly but apparently surely the ribbon moved toward the Harvard cleats.

Bruce caught the end of the rope in a knot, and muttered:

"Hold hard!"

The boys did hold hard, but in spite of that the rope gradually slipped through their hands.

"It can't last long," whispered Bruce, "keep cool."

A few seconds of such mighty tugging was indeed all that any team could stand, and presently the Harvard men rested, having gained three or four inches.

To many of the spectators it seemed now as if the ribbon was even with the chalk mark, and the Harvard crew were setting tip wild cries of triumph.

The Yale team, however, had been lying low. Bruce and his men had simply resisted the Harvard tug like so much dead weight, and the instant that the Yale anchor saw that the Harvard team had come to rest lie exclaimed:

"Pull!"

Then the Yale team gripped the rope and strained at it in earnest.

Their effort came like a yank, and in less than three seconds all the s.p.a.ce that had been lost in Harvard's long tug was recovered.

So the contest went on to the end. Harvard frequently made desperate efforts to get the ribbon on its side of the line, and each time the Yale team had to lose a little ground, but each time they made a complete recovery, and at the end of four minutes the victory was with the blue.

The Harvard team got out of sight as quickly as possible, while the Yale men went to their dressing-room, followed by the wild cheering of their friends.

For the next few minutes the Yale spectators paid little attention to what was going on on the floor. They busied themselves in cheering each member of their team.

Puss Parker led the cheering. He stood in front of the Yale tier and shouted:

"What's the matter with Browning?"

An immense chorus responded:

"He's all right."

"Nine cheers for Browning," demanded Parker, and then the rah-rahs came rattling forth like volleys from a battery.

Then Parker asked what was the matter with Merriwell, and so on until the others in the team had been complimented in the same way.

Frank was well pleased, but the complete victory was not yet won, and besides that, as manager, he had a keenness in all the other contests.

So as soon as he could do so he returned to the main room and watched what was going on.

The other members of the team, with the exception of Bruce, also returned.

The anchor, with his usual indolence, preferred to remain in his dressing-room and rest, although, to tell the truth, he did not feel the slightest fatigue.

Frank found nothing to be dissatisfied with, although victories for Yale were not piling up as well as he could have wished.