“At any rate,” Jibby went on, “the Mississippi at Helena is mostly muddy and not good for bass fishing, but the St. Francis is clearer, so we went up to the St. Francis to see what it was like and to catch some bass. And the old negro named Mose told us about this John A. Murrell, who was the greatest land pirate that ever lived, and had ten times as many men as any sea pirate that ever sailed the seas. He pirated all the way from Tennessee to Mississippi and Arkansas--” “But what has that to do with Iowa and us?” Wampus asked. “That’s about a thousand miles from here.” “That is what I am coming to,” Jibby said. “It was away back in 1835, and around then, that John A. Murrell was a land pirate. And you want to remember that John A. Murrell was not a one-horse horsethief; he was a big land pirate. He had about one thousand men helping him. They stole slaves and horses and carried them away and sold them, and robbed and stole and broke every law there was. There were two sorts of Murrell’s men. Two hundred and fifty of them were the Grand Council, and did the planning, and furnished the brains, and seven hundred and fifty others did the mean work--stole and robbed. But that was not all. There were hundreds and hundreds of people who seemed respectable who helped John A. Murrell. Some were in the gang and got part of the loot, and some were just afraid of him and helped him because they thought he would murder them and steal their slaves and cattle, and burn their houses and barns if they did not help him.” “That don’t mean there is any treasure anywhere where we could get it,” said Wampus, who was always objecting to things. “That’s what I’m coming to,” Jibby Jones said. “All through that country there were people who were afraid of John A. Murrell and his gangs, and they sheltered the pirates and fed them and hid them when the pirates were in danger. They were willing to hide the negroes and the horses the gang stole. And the sign that a man was a friend was one lone pine tree planted in the corner of a yard or of a farm or plantation. That was the sign of a friend’s place. Whenever any of the Murrell gang saw a lone pine in a corner, they knew it was safe to go there and ask shelter or food or a hiding-place. The land piracy was so huge and successful that John A. Murrell grew so bold he planned a gigantic uprising of negroes and Murrellers all over the South, to make a new nation and grab everything, but the news of it leaked out and he was caught and jailed. And not a cent of his money was ever found.” “But how does that prove--”