The battle is won by either party making prisoners of all of the opponents. Or it may be won by the besiegers if one of their men enters within the guard line inside the fortress without being touched by a defender. Should a player accomplish this, he shouts "Hole's won!" Whereupon the defenders must yield the fortress, and the two parties change places, defenders becoming besiegers, and vice versa. The possibility of taking the fortress in this way should lead to great alertness on the part of the defenders, as they should leave no point unguarded, especially a fence the enemy might scale. The guard line should be drawn inside any such boundaries, and a player entering in this way must of course get inside the guard line as well as over the fence. The attacking party on its part will use all possible devices for dashing into the fortress unexpectedly, such as engaging the players on one side of the fort to leave an unguarded loophole for entering at another.
The attacking general may withdraw his forces at any time for a rest or for conference; either general may run up a flag of truce at any time for similar purposes. Under such conditions the generals may arrange for an exchange of prisoners; otherwise there is no means of freeing prisoners.
FOX AND GEESE
(For other games sometimes known by this title, see Fox Trail and, in the division of Quiet Games, Naughts and Crosses.)
10 to 30 or more players.
Playground; gymnasium.
One player is chosen to be fox and another to be gander. The remaining players all stand in single file behind the gander, each with his hands on the shoulders of the one next in front. The gander tries to protect his flock of geese from being caught by the fox, and to do this spreads out his arms and dodges around in any way he sees fit to circumvent the efforts of the fox. Only the last goose in the line may be tagged by the fox, or should the line be very long, the last five or ten players may be tagged as decided beforehand. It will be seen that the geese may all coöperate with the gander by doubling and redoubling their line to prevent the fox from tagging the last goose. Should the fox tag the last goose (or one of the last five or ten, if that be permissible), that goose becomes fox and the fox becomes gander.
A good deal of spirit may be added to the game by the following dialogue, which is sometimes used to open it:—
The fox shouts tantalizingly, "Geese, geese, gannio!"
The geese reply scornfully, "Fox, fox, fannio!"
Fox, "How many geese have you to-day?"
Gander, "More than you can catch and carry away."
Whereupon the chase begins.