Each player selects for himself a den; a post, tree, or other objective point may serve for this, or the corner of a building, or if in a gymnasium, a piece of apparatus.
One player opens the game by running out from his den. The second player tries to catch (tag) him. The third player may try to catch either of these two, and so on. The object of the different players is to make captives of the others, as any player caught must thereafter join his captor in trying to catch others, thus eventually aggregating the different players into parties, although each starts separately, and any one may be the nucleus of a group should he be successful in catching another player. The players may only be caught by those who issue from a den after they themselves have ventured forth. For instance, Number Two goes out to catch Number One. Number Three may catch either Two or One, but neither of them may catch him. The last player out may catch any of the other players. At any time a player may run back to his den, after which his again issuing forth gives him the advantage over all others who may then be out, as he may catch them. As the players are gradually gathered into different parties, the game becomes more concentrated, and the side wins that captures all of the players.
One player may catch only one opponent at a time.
Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium by Jessie Hubbell Bancroft