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.