The men being placed as shown in Fig. 1, the game is begun by each player
moving alternately one of his men along the diagonal on which it is
situated. The men can only move forward either to right or left one square
at a time, unless they have attained one of the four squares on the extreme
further side of the board (technically termed the "crown-head"). This done,
they become Kings, and can move either forward or backward. The {432}
pieces take in the direction they move, by leaping over any opposing man
that may be immediately contiguous, provided there be a vacant square
behind it. If several men should be exposed by having open spaces behind
them alternately, they may be all taken at one capture, and the capturing
piece is then placed on the square beyond the last man.
To explain the mode of capturing by a practical illustration, let us begin
by placing the men as for a game. You will perceive that Black, who always
plays first, can only move one of the men placed on 9, 10, 11, or 12;
supposing him, then, to play the man on 11 to 15, and White to answer this
by playing 22 to 18, Black can take the white man on 18 by leaping from 15
to 22, and removing the captured piece from the board. Should Black not
take the man on 18, but make another move--say 12 to 16, for instance--he
is liable to be "huffed"; that is, White may remove the man (that on 15)
with which Black should have taken, off the board for not taking. When one
party "huffs" the other in preference to compelling the take, he does not
replace the piece his opponent moved, but simply removes the man huffed
from the board, and then plays his own move.