PICKING OUT A TEAM.
"One, two, drop!"
At the word there was a sudden thud as four bodies fell to the ground.
Immediately afterward there was a creaking and a sound of straining as
the four prostrate men pulled with all their might at a rope.
Then there were long breaths and grunts, and presently one of the four
exclaimed:
"I say, Merriwell, I didn't suppose you were going to say 'drop' until
you had counted three!"
"You had no business to suppose any such thing," responded Frank,
seriously, and yet with a smile; "the man who gives the word in a tug of
war sometimes doesn't count at all, and you've got to get used to
falling at one word only."
"It will be a pistol shot in New York, won't it?"
"That isn't decided on. You didn't get the rope under your knee when you
fell, Taylor."
"I know," responded the one addressed, "and that was because the word
'drop' came before I was ready for it."
"Look out for it next time, then. That will do for the present."
At this word the four young men stood up and looked at Merriwell to
await his next command.
They were in the gymnasium at Yale. A corner of the main exercise hall
had been set apart for them and screened so that their work could not be
seen or interrupted by other students.
Four short pieces of wood had been nailed to the floor at intervals of
about five feet. At each of these blocks or cleats a student stood with
his hand upon a rope that was tied to a post a few feet distant from the
nearest cleat.
These four were stripped to the thinnest of athletic costumes, but
Frank, who stood by directing their work, was in his usual street
clothes.
He was training the four to represent the college in a tug of war that
was to be one feature of some intercollegiate games to take place early
in the following month.
The contests were to consist of all kinds of indoor exercises, as the
season for outdoor sports had come to an end.
There was to be leaping, wrestling, trapeze and horizontal bar work,
maneuvers on the giant swings, fencing and so on.
The entries for these events were not limited to any one class; freshmen
could contest as well as seniors, and as a matter of fact many ambitious
fellows in the freshman class were in training for the big event.
Every day the wrestlers got together in the gymnasium and varied their
work at the machines by wrestling with each other.
The leapers, too, made daily efforts to jump a little higher or a little
farther than they had the day before, while those who made specialties
of tricks upon the bar and trapeze spent hours every day in perfecting
themselves in their feats.
The students talked of little else when they met on the campus, or in
one another's rooms of an evening.
Four colleges were to be represented in the meet, namely: Yale, Harvard,
Cornell and Princeton. The contests were to take place on neutral
ground, and for this purpose the big Seventh Regiment Armory in New York
City had been engaged.
The college year had hardly begun before arrangements for this athletic
meeting were under way.
As is usual in such matters, where the whole college is concerned, the
management was given to a committee of upper classmen.
There were three on this committee, Jack Rowland, and Bed Hill from the
senior class, and Frank from the junior.
It was not Frank's intention to take any active part in the contests,
although he was well known throughout the college as a first-class,
all-round athlete.
It seemed to him better that the contests against the other colleges
should be made by those who were specialists in one line or another. He
talked this matter over with his particular friends shortly after the
term began.
"It won't seem quite right to see you out of it," protested Rattleton,
"for when we had our sporting trip across the continent you were always
coming in at the last minute to pull victory out of defeat, no matter
whether we were jumping, running, playing ball or horse racing."
"That's another story," Frank replied. "When we were sporting it across
the continent there were only nine of us, and we were not all Yale
students at that. Here there are several hundred healthy men to choose
from.
"I don't think there's much doubt that out of all the students now in
college there is some one who could beat me at any one thing I might
undertake to do, from wrestling to trapeze work."
"But," said Diamond, "if you should go into training for any one event,
I think you'd come out on top."
"And that's what I don't care to do!" retorted Merriwell. "I'd rather be
an all-round man than be able to do just one thing; I shouldn't know
which to choose if I were to start in training."
"But we may lose a cup in some branch of sport if you don't go in."
"Oh, no, I think not. Besides that, there's going to be one event in
which I can take a kind of share, and where perhaps I can be as useful
to Yale as if I were contesting."
"What's that?"
"The tug of war."
"Is there going to be a tug of war?"
"Yes, siree!"
"Who's going to be on the team?"
"Will it be on cleats or on the level floor?"
"Will it be on the ground?"
These and many other questions of a similar kind were asked so rapidly
that Frank had no chance for a reply. At length he explained that the
team had not been chosen, and that anybody might be a candidate.
"The managing committee," he said, "has asked me to take charge of the
training, and we're going to have trials in a corner of the gymnasium
every afternoon. As soon as the team is made up, we shall get down to
daily practice."
It was perfectly natural that the tug of war should arouse more interest
throughout the college than any of the other events.
Of course it was important that one or another student should be in
training to meet the best wrestler or jumper from the other colleges,
but the tug of war was an event in which the whole college was
represented.
There is never anything like a team event to arouse the enthusiasm of
students.
A tug of war team consists of but four men, to be sure, but at that they
are supposed to be, and generally are, the strongest men in the college,
and so students of all classes looked to them for holding up the glory
of the college.
There was another thing that made the tug of war team especially
interesting at this time. For two or three years Princeton had been very
successful in the tug of war, whether pulling against other colleges of
against outside athletic organizations.
It had happened that three very strong men in a certain class had gone
onto the team in their freshman year and had stayed there ever since.
That was greatly to the advantage of the Princeton team, for with three
men on it who were perfectly used to each other, and who had had a great
deal of experience, the team was not only powerful, but it made every
other team afraid of it.
There is a great deal more in this than those who are not athletes
imagine. A team that has the reputation of always winning is apt to
strike terror to the hearts of its opponents and rattle them so that
they cannot do their best.
Princeton naturally was very proud of its tug of war team and perfectly
confident of carrying off the prize for that event. This was understood
not only at Yale, but at Harvard and Cornell, and at each of these three
colleges there was a determination to "down" Princeton if possible.
So it happened that when the managing committee at Yale announced that
they would examine candidates for the tug of war team, there was so much
interest in it that a perfect mob of students gathered at the gymnasium
eager for a place upon the rope.
Rowland and Hill, the senior members of the committee, were inclined to
dismiss the whole crowd and then quietly pick out four men according to
their own judgment, but Merriwell opposed this policy.
"There may be perfect giants concealed in that crowd," he said, "and if
there's only one, we want to discover him. Give them all a trial."
"But it would take weeks," exclaimed Hill, "to arrange those men in
teams and make them pull against each other until we could sift out the
best four!"
"I don't think we need to have them pull against each other to find out
what they're worth," Frank responded.
"What other way is there?" asked Rowland.
"I have an idea that I can sift that crowd in a week."
"Well, then, you'd better try it."
So it was agreed that Frank should undertake to examine the candidates
for the team, and to superintend its training.
His plan for examining the applicants caused a good deal of amusement at
first, but it proved to be remarkably effective as well as a great time
saver.
In a tug of war, as in many other sports, it is not only brute strength
that tells, but quickness and skill. Frank believed a good deal more in
the head work of tugging than he did in solid muscle.
"If a man can't drop right every time," he declared, "he isn't fit for
the team. If he can drop right, he's got the making of a tugger."
To test this he had a rope fastened securely to a post, and the
candidates in squads of four took hold of this rope and dropped half a
dozen times at Frank's command. He gave brief explanations of what was
necessary for them to do, to each squad before giving the word; then he
watched the men go down, showing them where they had been in error and
had them try again.
It took no more than half a dozen minutes for as many trials and then
another squad was brought on.
In this way he easily tested from thirty to forty men an hour, and so in
the course of three days had given every candidate for the team a
chance.
After that it was an easy matter for him to strike off the list fully
three-quarters of the candidates; that left from twenty to thirty who
might still be useful.
These men he tried in groups of four also, but continually shifted the
men from one group to another so as to find out which of them worked
together to the best advantage.
At length, after ten days of patient examination in this way, he had
Rowland and Hill come behind the screen and watch the efforts of six men
who had been selected as the best team workers in the whole college.
The matter was discussed very frankly, not only by the members of the
committee, but by the candidates themselves, for everybody was anxious
that the best possible team should be selected and nobody would have
been offended if he had been left off.
It was decided at last that Bruce Browning should be the anchor of the
team. He had been Frank's choice almost from the start, for he was heavy
and cool, and from past experience Frank knew that Bruce could be quick
if it was necessary.
It is the anchor in a tug-of-war who does the head work for the team.
"I'd rather have a good anchor and three weak men," said Frank,
emphatically, "than three giants on the rope directed by an anchor who
is either excitable or slow."
Everybody agreed that Bruce was just the man for the Yale anchor, and
after a good many trials Taylor, of the senior class, and Jackson, of
the sophomore, were assigned places on the rope; that left one vacancy.
Merriwell recommended that the other three men who had stood the test so
far be trained equally, so that two at least could rank as substitutes
in case of sickness or other difficulty.
The committee and the members of the team suggested that Frank himself
should take the vacant place on the rope.
"Everybody knows you've got the muscle and the head, and with you and
Bruce on the rope, we'll have as perfect a team as possible."
Frank hesitated a little before accepting this suggestion, but he
finally yielded, for without conceit he felt that he could be more
useful than the others, and he had a natural eagerness to take an active
part in the contest.
Nevertheless, he continued to direct the training of the team, using
Rattleton as a substitute on the rope while he stood by and gave orders.
In this way he got the men so that they could fall at the word and fall
right, and when this had been gained he took Rattleton's place and gave
over the direction of the movements of the team to the anchor.
After that there was a good deal of practice in pulling at voluntary
teams from among the students.
It proved that there were no four students in the college who could stay
on the cleats half a minute against the team that Frank had selected and
trained; so practice teams were made up of five, six, and sometimes
eight men.
The dead weight of eight men proved to be a little too much for the
regular team, although the latter was never pulled off the cleats.
All in all the Yale students were greatly satisfied with their tug of
war team, and as the time for the intercollegiate contests approached
their confidence grew.
They believed that they would be able to get away with Princeton, and it
did not seem to strike them at all that the other colleges were in it.