“How could a carp get in a tree except by climbing it?” Orpheus Cadwallader drawled. “Of course, you needn’t believe me, if you don’t want to, but I’ll believe carps climb trees as long as I live.” We knew, of course, that that carp had not climbed a tree. We knew exactly how it had got into that tree--our fishing tree had slung the carp so high in the air that it had alighted in the top of the maple tree. I nudged Wampus and grinned. It was then Jibby Jones turned to us and spoke. “Rabbits,” he said, and then repeated it: “Rabbits, and carp, may climb trees, but you cannot be sure rabbits and carp do climb trees just because you happen to find rabbits and carp in trees.” Orpheus Cadwallader turned and looked at Jibby. “Rabbits, hey?” he said. “I don’t know about rabbits. I never saw a rabbit climb a tree, and I never saw a rabbit in a tree, so I say nothing about rabbits. But I do know about carp. I know carp can climb trees, because I saw this carp in the tree, and it was still alive and kicking. I saw that with my own eyes. And if the carp did not climb that tree, how did it get up that tree?” “Maybe it leaped from the water to the tree,” said Jibby. “Foolishness! Nonsense!” Orpheus Cadwallader said. “I know better than that. A carp can’t leap that far.” But we knew better, because that was just what that carp had done. It had made one jump from the slough to the tree. But had we helped it a little. So Orph went waddling home with his tree-climbing carp, pretty mad because nobody would believe it had climbed the tree, but Jibby stood looking after him. When Orph had gone out of sight, Jibby turned to Skippy. “Skippy,” he drawled, with a twinkle in his eyes that sometimes came there, “you don’t want to hunt for pirate’s treasure, do you? A little while ago you said we might as well look for fish in the tops of trees as for pirate’s treasure around here. I don’t say there is pirate’s treasure everywhere around here, but there does seem to be a fish in the top of a tree now and then.” Skippy grinned. “All right!” he said. “Tell us about the land pirate again, Jibby. Anybody that can throw a carp into a tree-top has a right to believe in a land pirate’s treasure being a thousand miles from where he got it.” CHAPTER V THE FISHING PRIZE That night, before we went to bed, the five of us sat on the riprap rocks in front of the cottages, and Jibby told all he knew about the land pirate and his treasure again, and we got up the Land Pirate’s Treasure-Hunting and Exploration Company. We sat there and swatted mosquitoes and talked like good friends and Dutch uncles, and swore a cross-my-heart and hope-to-die oath to be faithful and true to the constitution and by-laws of the Land Pirate’s Treasure-Hunting and Exploration Company. There wasn’t any constitution or any by-laws, but that did not matter--we swore to be true to them, anyhow, and maybe, sometime when we had time, we might get up some, if we thought we needed them.