The only thing I was sorry about was that Rover had come this particular day, because the next day I would have to tie him up and leave him at home, because it was the day of the Uncle Oscar Fishing Prize. You can’t have a dog along when you are fishing from a skiff for a prize. And Uncle Oscar’s Fishing Prize was one of the most important things of the whole summer, always. The way of the Uncle Oscar Fishing Prize was this: Every year, as long as we had been going up to the island, Wampus Smale’s Uncle Oscar had given a prize to the fellow who made the best fishing record on a certain day, and that day was Uncle Oscar’s birthday. That was why we fished for the prize on that day, and not on another day. This Uncle Oscar just lived and breathed on the river, as you might say, and loved it, and he thought nobody fished enough or boated enough or swam enough or loved the big old river enough. That was the way he was. He almost wept when he told about the old days when the river was full of fish and the big old packets and logging steamers were as thick as mosquitoes, and great long log rafts used to float down with huts built on them, and camp-fires, and men pushing the long sweeps to steer them. That was why, every year, he offered the fishing prize, but we boys got so we didn’t take much interest in it. “He just gives it so Wampus can win it,” Skippy Root said to me this year. “He knows Wampus is the best fisher, and he knows Wampus is sure to win it.” “Well,” I said, “ain’t you going to try for it? Fishing is luck, and sometime Wampus’s luck is going to go back on him.” “Sure, I’m going to try,” Skippy said. “I’m going to try, but not because I’ve got a chance to win. I’m going to try because Uncle Oscar Smale is a bully fellow and he’d feel bad if we didn’t let on we were trying to win the prize he gives. But Wampus will win it, like he always does.” I thought so, too, and so did Tad Willing. Wampus always won. But, when we saw the prize Wampus’s Uncle Oscar offered this year, we did wish we had a chance. It was a jointed fishing-rod, with a five-dollar reel, and it was a beauty. So, a week or so before Uncle Oscar’s birthday, we were squatting on the shore of the river talking about things, and Jibby Jones came along and sat down beside us. We were talking about crawfish holes and where bees had their bee trees with the honey in them and all sorts of things, just as we happened to think of them. There was a yellow-jacket bee on a flower just in front of us, getting honey, and Skippy said he wished he knew where that bee’s bee tree was. Jibby Jones leaned over until his big nose almost touched the bee. “I can’t tell by this bee,” he said, “but by and by there will be a bee come along and I can tell you.”