awdust
ready, as he would want the field paved with it.

* * * * *

The policy of the Ripton team was obvious from the first over. They
meant to force the game. Already the sun was beginning to peep through
the haze. For about an hour run-getting ought to be a tolerably simple
process; but after that hour singles would be as valuable as threes
and boundaries an almost unheard-of luxury.

So Ripton went in to hit.

The policy proved successful for a time, as it generally does.
Burgess, who relied on a run that was a series of tiger-like leaps
culminating in a spring that suggested that he meant to lower the long
jump record, found himself badly handicapped by the state of the
ground. In spite of frequent libations of sawdust, he was compelled to
tread cautiously, and this robbed his bowling of much of its pace. The
score mounted rapidly. Twenty came in ten minutes. At thirty-five the
first wicket fell, run out.

At sixty Ellerby, who had found the pitch too soft for him and had
been expensive, gave place to Grant. Grant bowled what were supposed
to be slow leg-breaks, but which did not always break. The change
worked.

Maclaine, after hitting the first two balls to the boundary, skied the
third to Bob Jackson in the deep, and Bob, for whom constant practice
had robbed this sort of catch of its terrors, held it.

A yorker from Burgess disposed of the next man before he could settle
down; but the score, seventy-four for three wickets, was large enough
in view of the fact that the pitch was already becoming more
difficult, and was certain to get worse, to make Ripton feel that the
advantage was with them. Another hour of play remained before lunch.
The deterioration of the wicket would be slow during that period. The
sun, which was now shining brightly, would put in its deadliest work
from two o'clock onwards. Maclaine's instructions to his men were to
go on hitting.

A too liberal interpretation of the meaning of the verb "to hit" led
to the departure of two more Riptonians in the course of the next two
overs. There is a certain type of school batsman who considers that to
force the game means to swipe blindly at every ball on the chance of
taking it half-volley. This policy sometimes leads to a boundary or
two, as it did on this occasion, but it means that wickets will fall,
as also happened now. Seventy-four for three became eighty-six for
five. Burgess began to look happier.