“Yes, sir,” Jibby said, as if he was pleased to have Bill Catlin compliment him that way. “I do try to know something; I find it comes in handy sometimes. I think it is better than just thinking you know something. My father says so. My father says it is foolish to read in a story book that a man made a trip to the moon and then to think you know that a man did make a trip to the moon; my father says it is better to find out the true facts first.” “And your father knows what he is talking about,” Bill Catlin said. “Yes, sir,” said Jibby Jones meekly; and then he added, in the same meek way, “What book did you read about treasure trove in, Mr. Catlin?” Well, Bill Catlin sort of looked at Jibby as if he hadn’t seen him before. He stared at him. Then he got red in the face. “What did you ask that for?” he wanted to know. “Because in the books I read,” Jibby said, “I couldn’t find anything about halves and halves when you find treasure. Of course,” he added, “I only read some encyclopædias and law books and things like that, as anybody would when they start out to dig for treasure. I don’t believe even the biggest book weighed over ten pounds, and only a part of that one was about hidden treasure, so maybe what I think I know don’t amount to much.” Then Bill Catlin asked him what he had found in the books, and Jibby said that “treasure trove” meant any gold or silver or money found hidden in the ground or in any private place, the ownership of which was unknown. In England, Jibby said, the treasure that was found belonged to the king and not to the finder, but, if the owner was known or was discovered later, the treasure belonged to the owner, and not to the king or the finder at all, and if the finder kept it or hid it he could be jailed. “You don’t mean it!” Bill Catlin exclaimed. “Yes, sir; that’s what the books say,” Jibby said. “And in the United States there isn’t any such thing as treasure trove at all. When anything is found on the land, it belongs to the man that finds it, unless he knows the true owner, and then it belongs to the true owner, just as if it was a cow or a suit of clothes or a bushel of apples.” “Then I don’t come in at all, hey?” Bill Catlin said. “No, sir,” Jibby said, “but all we have found so far is an old 1804 dollar.” “Oh, I don’t want that,” said Bill Catlin carelessly. He was very much disappointed; I guess he had expected to get fifty thousand dollars, maybe. “Well,” he said, “I’ll go along and help you burn out the bees, anyway.”