They were in the gymnasium at Yale. A corner of the main exercise hall had been set apart for them and screened so that their work could not be seen or interrupted by other students.
Four short pieces of wood had been nailed to the floor at intervals of about five feet. At each of these blocks or cleats a student stood with his hand upon a rope that was tied to a post a few feet distant from the nearest cleat.
These four were stripped to the thinnest of athletic costumes, but Frank, who stood by directing their work, was in his usual street clothes.
He was training the four to represent the college in a tug of war that was to be one feature of some intercollegiate games to take place early in the following month.
The contests were to consist of all kinds of indoor exercises, as the season for outdoor sports had come to an end.
There was to be leaping, wrestling, trapeze and horizontal bar work, maneuvers on the giant swings, fencing and so on.
The entries for these events were not limited to any one class; freshmen could contest as well as seniors, and as a matter of fact many ambitious fellows in the freshman class were in training for the big event.
Every day the wrestlers got together in the gymnasium and varied their work at the machines by wrestling with each other.
The leapers, too, made daily efforts to jump a little higher or a little farther than they had the day before, while those who made specialties of tricks upon the bar and trapeze spent hours every day in perfecting themselves in their feats.
The students talked of little else when they met on the campus, or in one another's rooms of an evening.
Four colleges were to be represented in the meet, namely: Yale, Harvard, Cornell and Princeton. The contests were to take place on neutral ground, and for this purpose the big Seventh Regiment Armory in New York City had been engaged.
The college year had hardly begun before arrangements for this athletic meeting were under way.
As is usual in such matters, where the whole college is concerned, the management was given to a committee of upper classmen.
There were three on this committee, Jack Rowland, and Bed Hill from the senior class, and Frank from the junior.
It was not Frank's intention to take any active part in the contests, although he was well known throughout the college as a first-class, all-round athlete.