About a minute had passed since the fall, when the Harvard anchor suddenly gave his men the word, and leaned far back upon the floor. It was a mighty tug. Slowly but apparently surely the ribbon moved toward the Harvard cleats. Bruce caught the end of the rope in a knot, and muttered: "Hold hard!" The boys did hold hard, but in spite of that the rope gradually slipped through their hands. "It can't last long," whispered Bruce, "keep cool." A few seconds of such mighty tugging was indeed all that any team could stand, and presently the Harvard men rested, having gained three or four inches. To many of the spectators it seemed now as if the ribbon was even with the chalk mark, and the Harvard crew were setting tip wild cries of triumph. The Yale team, however, had been lying low. Bruce and his men had simply resisted the Harvard tug like so much dead weight, and the instant that the Yale anchor saw that the Harvard team had come to rest lie exclaimed: "Pull!" Then the Yale team gripped the rope and strained at it in earnest. Their effort came like a yank, and in less than three seconds all the space that had been lost in Harvard's long tug was recovered. So the contest went on to the end. Harvard frequently made desperate efforts to get the ribbon on its side of the line, and each time the Yale team had to lose a little ground, but each time they made a complete recovery, and at the end of four minutes the victory was with the blue. The Harvard team got out of sight as quickly as possible, while the Yale men went to their dressing-room, followed by the wild cheering of their friends. For the next few minutes the Yale spectators paid little attention to what was going on on the floor. They busied themselves in cheering each member of their team. Puss Parker led the cheering. He stood in front of the Yale tier and shouted: "What's the matter with Browning?" An immense chorus responded: "He's all right." "Nine cheers for Browning," demanded Parker, and then the rah-rahs came rattling forth like volleys from a battery. Then Parker asked what was the matter with Merriwell, and so on until the others in the team had been complimented in the same way. Frank was well pleased, but the complete victory was not yet won, and besides that, as manager, he had a keenness in all the other contests. So as soon as he could do so he returned to the main room and watched what was going on. The other members of the team, with the exception of Bruce, also returned. The anchor, with his usual indolence, preferred to remain in his dressing-room and rest, although, to tell the truth, he did not feel the slightest fatigue. Frank found nothing to be dissatisfied with, although victories for Yale were not piling up as well as he could have wished.