At a signal from the oldest of the chiefs the contestants
arranged themselves in two parallel lines facing each other,
inside the area and about ten rods apart. Every man was armed
with a strong stick three and a half to four feet in length, and
curving toward the end. Upon this curved end was tightly
fastened a network of thongs of untanned deerskin, drawn until
they were rigid and taut. The ball with which they were to play
was made of closely wrapped elastic skins, and was about the size
of an ordinary apple.

At the end of the lines, but about midway between them, sat the
chiefs, who, besides being judges and stakeholders, were also
score keepers. They kept tally of the game by cutting notches
upon sticks. Every time one side put the ball through the
other's goal it counted one, but there was an unusual power
exercised by the chiefs, practically unknown to the games of
white men. If one side got too far ahead, its score was cut down
at the discretion of the chiefs in order to keep the game more
even, and also to protract it sometimes over three or four days.
The warriors of the leading side might grumble among one another
at the amount of cutting the chiefs did, but they would not dare
to make any protest. However, the chiefs would never cut the
leading side down to an absolute parity with the other. It was
always allowed to retain a margin of the superiority it had won.

The game was now about to begin, and the excitement became
intense. Even the old judges leaned forward in their eagerness,
while the brown bodies of the warriors shone in the sun, and the
taut muscles leaped up under the skin. Fifty players on each
side, sticks in hand, advanced to the center of the ground, and