Next time there was no easy galloping across the ground. All the Archangels closed up as one man, but there they stayed, for Corks, Kittiwynk, and Polaris were somewhere on the top of the ball, marking time among the rattling sticks, while Shiraz circled about outside, waiting for a chance.
“We can do this all day,” said Polaris, ramming his quarters into the side of another pony. “Where do you think you’re shoving to?”
“I’ll—I’ll be driven in an ekka if I know,” was the gasping reply, “and I’d give a week’s feed to get my blinkers off. I can’t see anything.”
“The dust is rather bad. Whew! That was one for my off-hock. Where’s the ball, Corks?”
“Under my tail. At least, the man’s looking for it there! This is beautiful. They can’t use their sticks, and it’s driving ’em wild. Give old Blinkers a push and then he’ll go over.”
“Here, don’t touch me! I can’t see. I’ll—I’ll back out, I think,” said the pony in blinkers, who knew that if you can’t see all round your head, you cannot prop yourself against the shock.
Corks was watching the ball where it lay in the dust, close to his near fore-leg, with Macnamara’s shortened stick tap-tapping it from time to time. Kittiwynk was edging her way out of the scrimmage, whisking her stump of a tail with nervous excitement.
“Ho! They’ve got it,” she snorted. “Let me out!” and she galloped like a rifle-bullet just behind a tall lanky pony of the Archangels, whose rider was swinging up his stick for a stroke.
“Not to-day, thank you,” said Hughes, as the blow slid off his raised stick, and Kittiwynk laid her shoulder to the tall pony’s quarters, and shoved him aside just as Lutyens on Shiraz sent the ball where it had come from, and the tall pony went skating and slipping away to the left. Kittiwynk, seeing that Polaris had joined Corks in the chase for the ball up the ground, dropped into Polaris’ place, and then “time” was called.
The Skidars’ ponies wasted no time in kicking or fuming. They knew that each minute’s rest meant so much gain, and trotted off to the rails and their saises, who began to scrape and blanket and rub them at once.