Tip Top Weekly No. 80: Frank Merriwell as 'Anchor' — page 6: what you’re looking at

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

4 FRANK MERRIWELE AS ANCHOR, Hill, to arrange these men in teams and make them pull against each other until we could sift out the best four!’ **T 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?” Rowland. | “T have an idea thatIcan 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 remarkable 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 be- lieved 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 min- utes 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. asked 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 use- ful. These men he tried i 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 commit- tee, but by the candidates themselves, for everybody was anxious that the best pos- sible 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 al- most 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. “24 rather have a good anchor and three weak men,’ said Frank emphati- cally, ‘‘than three giants on the rope directed by an anchor who is either ex- citable 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 sick- ness or other difficulty. The committee and the members of the team suggested that Frank himself should take the vacant place on the rope. ECOMICLO® SS (SO)