, but must be on his guard against any who came out after
he did. Stepping over the side lines while being chased is equivalent
to being caught; but this does not apply when escorting a prisoner or
at any other time.

Prisoners may stretch out of the prison as far as possible so long as
one foot is within it. As the number of prisoners increases, they may
stretch out in one long file from the prison, provided each touches a
hand or foot, or some other part of the next player. In such a file,
the first prisoner captured should be the farthest away from the
prison, the last one captured with at least one foot in the goal, and
the others in relative order. After the first prisoner is caught, the
game centers more on freeing or preventing the freeing of prisoners
than on runs into the enemy's goal.

This is the form of Prisoner's Base preferred by Mr. Joseph Lee
of Boston, and described by him in _Playground_ (No. 8). Mr.
Lee says:--

"The interest of the game depends very much on locating the
prison in such a way as to give the right balance between the
forces of offense and defense. If it is placed close to the
base line of the side by which the capture has been made, it is
almost impossible to free the prisoner if there is any defense
at all. The game is often spoiled by this mistake. On the other
hand, it must not be placed too far out, for if it is, it
becomes impossible to win the game, because the line of
prisoners, when the side is nearly all caught, then extends to
a point so much nearer their own base line than to that of
their opponents that even the slowest runner on the losing side
can get down and free a prisoner before the fastest runner on
the opposite side can get out to stop him. The art of laying
out the ground is to have the prison placed far enough out to
make the freeing of the first prisoner reasonably easy, without
being so far out as to make the catching of the last one
impossible. In general, the game can be made lively and
comparatively unscientific by making the distance between the
base lines (the lines on which the two sides are lined up)
short, the field wide, and the prisons far out; and can be made
more difficult and less eventful by making it long and narrow,
with the prisons close in. If this latter tendency is carried
too far, however, freeing prisoners and