As it was perfectly certain that no Princeton man had any hand in the matter, or any knowledge of it other than had been given to the managers by the Yale team, nothing was said about it at the time, for everybody was anxious that the tug of war between Yale and Princeton should be pulled on its merits. The master of ceremonies announced that an accident had happened to Yale's anchor, and that Merriwell would take his place, with Rattleton as substitute on the rope. There was a good deal of dismay at this in the Yale ranks, for although everybody had confidence in Frank, all knew that a change in the make-up of a team at the last moment is likely to be disastrous. Nevertheless, Merriwell was greeted with a big cheer when he went out to the floor and wound the end of the rope around his belt. He put Rattleton on the farther end of the line, and moved Taylor up to his own old position. There was then a breathless moment, while both sides waited for the pistol shot. When it came, the eight men went down at the same instant. It was evident that the Princeton team had observed the success of Yale men in dropping, and had determined not to let them get an advantage in that way. The ribbon stood exactly at the chalk mark, and the first few seconds of violent pulling failed to budge it more than a hair's breadth in either direction. The great audience stood up and cheered as they had not done since the evening began. It was a delight to see two teams of strong young men so evenly matched in strength and skill. On the Yale side there was fear in spite of the enthusiastic cheering that Merriwell's weight would be against them in the end, and not a few called attention to the fact that the Yale team had already pulled once, while Princeton was perfectly fresh. These things were thought of, too, on the Princeton side, and that made the wearers of the orange more confident. As in the former pull, there was a short period of rest after the first tug. The anchors eyed each other warily, and the men lay on the rope, crossing their legs over it, and waiting for the signal to tug again. Frank saw the Princeton anchor whispering to the man in front of him. "If that's a command to pull," he thought, "it's given too openly, and it's probably a dodge to throw us off our guard." It seemed to be so, for the Princeton men gave one sudden yank at the rope, and then lay still. The yank did not stir the ribbon, and it did not call out any answering pulls from the Yale men. Many of the spectators wondered at this, and began to set up shouts to Merriwell to order a pull. He remained perfectly quiet, paying no attention to the shouts around him, apparently not hearing them. In fact, he was not more than half conscious that there was anybody in the room except the three men directly in front of him and the four adversaries on the opposite team.