"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."