Tip Top Weekly No. 80: Frank Merriwell as 'Anchor' — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

FRANK MERRIWELL AS ANCHOR. 23 the ring, and many a vain attempt to bring on a fall, Grant got in a sudden trip that brought Mellor to his knees. Then, exerting all his weight and force, Grant crowded the Yale man down until his side was on the floor. No fall could be counted until Mellor’s shoulders were both squarely on the floor, and, therefore, Grant was crowding with all his might to prevent his antagonist from turning on his face. | When a wrestler lies over on his stomach with his arms outstretched, it is almost impossible to turn him. It looked as if Mellor were trying to get into this position, for then Grant would be coinpelled to stand off and give him a chance to spring up. Grant, of course, was trying to do just the reverse, for having Mellor so nearly down, he did not care to give him a chance to get on his feet again. Just how it was done it was hard to see, but suddenly Mellor seemed to rise as if he were on a trap that rose by the force of a concealed spring. With a wonderfully quick movement he broke his hold and got a new one, and before anybody realized what his at- tempt meant, he had turned his antagon- ist over and brought Grant’s shoulders squarely down upon the floor. Then the building shook with howls. Yale had won the first bout in whestling, and at the same instant Harvard had beaten the Cornell tug of war team. The Yale managers were happy. It seemed now as if Mellor were certain of carrying off the cup for wrestling. According to the fall of lots he was to tackle Sherman of Harvard next. Sherman was a comparatively slender, but very wiry fellow. He was consider- ably under Mellor’s weight, and as the latter had shown unusual skill it was thought that the Harvard man would prove an easy victim. | So he did in the first round. Mellor downed him almost as easily as he had turned down Grant, but as it proved that was the end of the Yale freshman’s stay- ing power. oe He had put all his force into the two sets with Grant and the first with Sher- man; when it came to the second set with exciting the latter there was a. long, struggle, which ended in Mellor’s going under. He showed his exhaustion plainly after that, and his limbs quivered when he went out for the third set. He struggled well, and really made a good showing, but the Harvard man downed him at last, and with that defeat Yale’s chances for coming out ahead in the general tournament were badly dainaged. Nevertheless Frank and the other man- agers felt that Mellor had made so gaod a showing that nobody would suspect that he had disobeved regulations and unfitted himself for making the contest. CHAPTER VII. A DIRTY TRICK. As might be expected, there was a big chorus of shouting when the Yale and Harvard teams came out for their trial in the tug of war. . Matters had been running rather evenly between the four colleges; each had gained at least one first place, and there was nu reason for the friends of any col- lege ta be discouraged about the general result. | The Harvard men seemed to he 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 conduct- ing a tug of war, it will be well to ex- plain that in inter-collegiate gamies, when held indoors, the contestants always brace themselves upon cleats. 7 The rope which they hold lies loose upon the floor between the two teams. At a point nidway 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 té. pull the rope away from their opponents, and so bring that ribbon fur- ther and further toward their cleats. - In a closely contested match ‘it. some- GOMMIGOOOKXS (SO)