“Shucks!” said Wampus. “Was that it?” “Sure, it was!” said Jibby. “I figured that your worms would wash out pale quicker than mine, and that by the middle of the afternoon they would be pretty sick worms, in a hot tin can, while mine, in a box of moss, would be cool and fresh and lively. And they were! It was as if I had live worms to fish with and you had dead ones.” “And you got that out of a book that was written maybe a couple of hundred years ago?” I asked him. “Sure, I did!” said Jibby. “I’ve got a nose that can smell common sense that far.” Well, that beat us! That beat Wampus, too. “You win!” he said. “You had us all fooled, Jibby. You deserve the prize. You’ve got a wonderful nose!” So that was all there was to it. We all laughed, and Jibby laughed, and Wampus’s Uncle Oscar laughed. Then, all of a sudden, Wampus’s Uncle Oscar put his nose in the air and sniffed. “Um-yum!” he said. “I’ve got a fine nose, too. I can smell fish frying, and it certainly smells good to me. Can you smell it, Jibby?” Jibby put his nose in the air and sniffed. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I can smell three channel catfish and four perch.” [Illustration: “I GUESS HE’S GOT A REAL NOSE FOR FISH”] Then he sniffed again. “Two of the catfish are fried on one side, and the other catfish and the four perch are fried on the other side,” he said. And that’s how Jibby was; he was a dandy. He liked to fool, but there was always something back of his fooling. This time it was a fried fish supper. So we went to wash up and have it, for we were all eating at Wampus’s house. And while Wampus was washing, he turned to Jibby and said: “Well, Jibby, if your nose can smell out things so extra well, why don’t you give it a little more exercise and then smell out that land pirate’s treasure?” “Maybe I will, Wampus, if you say to. You’re the Captain and the orders have to come from you,” Jibby said. But none of us knew then how soon we were going to be a lot more excited about that land pirate’s treasure. CHAPTER VII THE TOUGH CUSTOMER Well, we all had a good time at dinner, and Wampus’s Uncle Oscar made a speech and gave Jibby Jones the rod and reel, and Jibby made us laugh by saying we mustn’t blame him for winning the prize, because it wasn’t his fault he had an extra good nose; he said it was his Grandfather Parmenter’s fault, that he had inherited the nose from. Then Wampus’s Uncle Oscar said that it was all right to say “nose,” but that the kind of “nose” Jibby used was brains, and that--on the river or off the river--the fellow that had brains and used them always stood the best chance of winning. So we ate fried fish until we couldn’t eat any more, and then we sat around outside until bedtime, and I tied Rover to one of the posts under our cottage, and we all went home and to bed.