Tip Top Weekly No. 80: Frank Merriwell as 'Anchor' — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

1S Four short pieces of wood had been nailed to the floor at intervais of about five feet. At each of these blocks or cleats astudent 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 thin- nest 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 out- door sports had come to an end. | There was to be leaping, wrestling, trapeze and horizontal bar work, manoeu- vres 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 further 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 an- other’s rooms of an evening. Four colleges were to be represented in the meet, namely: . Yale, Harvard, Cor- nell and Princeton. The contests were to take place on neutral ground, and for this purpose the big Seventh Regiment Ar- mory in New York City had been en- gaged. FRANK MERRIWELL AS ANCHOR. The college year had hardly begun be- fore arrangements for this athletic meet- ing were under way. As is usual in such matters where the whole college is concerned, the manage- ment was given to a committee of upper class men. | There were three on this committee, Jack Rowland, and Ben Hill from the senior class, and Frank Merriwell. from the junior. It was not Frank’s intention to take any active part in the contests, although he was well known throughout the col- lege as a first-class all-round athiete. It seemed to him better that the con- tests against the other colleges should be niade by these who were specialists in one line or another. He talked this matter al] over with lus particular friends shortly after the term began. ‘Tt won’t seem quite right to see you out of it,’* protested Rattleton, ‘‘for when we had our sporting trip across the con- tinent 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 re- plied. ‘‘When we were sporting it across the continent there were onlv nine of. us, and we were not all] Yale students at that. Here there are several hundred healthy men te choose from. “TY 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.”’ ‘CAnd 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; Ishouldn’t know which to clioose if I] were to start in training.” Gon lp OO co