Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/49

string. To do this you must make your kite dart under the twine of your enemy. As soon as it darts let out string rapidly enough to keep your fighter under control, and at the same time allow it to fall to the rear of the other kite. Having accomplished this, drop your ball of string and pull in hand over hand, as fast as possible. If your enemy is not very spry and well up in these tactics, this manœuvre will hopelessly entangle his kite-tail on your string. Then, although the battle is half won, a great deal depends upon your superior quickness, skill, and also upon the strength of your twine, which may break, or your victim may escape with the loss of part of its tail. If, however, you are successful in capturing your prisoner you can write on your kite the date of the victory, and the name of the vanquished warrior. The captive must, in all cases, be returned to its proper owner after the latter has signed his name to the record of his defeat written upon your kite. Thus is the successful hero soon covered with the records of his victories, while the unsuccessful fighter carries a bare blank face.

are of a more relentless and bloodthirsty order than the strategic unarmed warrior. The peculiar mission of these rampant champions of the air is to cut the enemy off from his base of supplies; then with a satisfied wriggle, and a fiendish wag of the tail, this ferocious flyer sails serenely on, while his ruined victim falls helplessly to the earth, or ignominiously hangs himself on some uncongenial tree, where his skeleton will struggle and swing until beaten to pieces by the very element that sustained him in his elevation before his thread of life was cut. In this sport, new to most Northern boys, they will find an exciting and healthy pastime, one that will teach them to think and act quickly, a quality that when acquired may be of infinite service to them in after years.