An excited Yale or Harvard man can give the college cry somehow when he would be unable to conduct a conversation above a whisper.
The very middle of the hall was left vacant. All the contests were to take place there, and, therefore, in full view of all the spectators.
The athletes had their dressing-rooms at the ends and sides of the building, and there were so many of them that each college had a number of rooms for itself.
The Yale managers took their men up to the armory about half an hour before the call for the first event.
Dressing-rooms had been picked out in advance, and the men belonging to the tug-of-war were put into one room by themselves.
The Yale crowd in the audience cheered frantically when they recognized their companions marching across the floor to their dressing-rooms.
Shortly after that the Princeton men came in, and then there was a wild howling from the other side of the room.
So it went on, and so it continued all through the evening, for there was hardly a moment when there was not something going on to arouse the enthusiasm of one college or another, and if by any accident there was a hitch in the proceedings, there was plenty of excited students in each faction to stand in front of the tiers of seats and lead their comrades in cheering on general principles.
As there were many events, and many entries in each one, the programme was put through rapidly, and as often as possible, two or more events were being contested at the same time.
The object sought for by each college was to gain as many victories, or in other words, first places, as possible, but in some events, like wrestling and fencing, where only two men could contest at a time, it was necessary to have two or three and sometimes four bouts in the same event.