ohnny Appleseed cares nothing for money. I believe he is
under a vow of poverty. No one laughs at him. The tribes on these
grounds would not hurt a hair of his head, not only because God has
touched him, but because he plants apples. I have eaten his apples
myself."

"Johnny Appleseed!" I repeated, and Skenedonk hastened to tell me:

"He has another name, but I forget it. He is called Johnny Appleseed."

The slim and scarcely perceptible tunnel, among trees, piled with fallen
logs and newly sprung growths, let us into a wide clearing as suddenly
as a stream finds its lake. We could not see even the usual cow tracks.
A cabin shedding light from its hearth surprised us in the midst of
stumps.

The door stood wide. A woman walked back and forth over a puncheon
floor, tending supper. Dogs rushed to meet us, and the playing of
children could be heard. A man, gun in hand, stepped to his door, a
sentinel. He lowered its muzzle, and made us welcome, and helped us put
our horses under shelter with his own.

It was not often we had a woman's handiwork in corn bread and game to
feed ourselves upon, or a bed covered with homespun sheets.

I slept as the children slept, until a voice rang in the clearing:

"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, and He hath anointed me to blow the
trumpet in the wilderness, and sound an alarm in the forest; for behold
the tribes of the heathen are round about your doors, and a devouring
flame followeth after them!"

Every sleeper in the cabin sat upright or stirred. We said in whispered
chorus:

"Johnny Appleseed!"

A tapping, light and regular, on the window, followed. The man was on
the floor in a breath. I heard the mother groping among the children,
and whispering:

"Don't wake the baby!"

The fire had died upon the hearth, and they lighted no candle. When
Johnny Appleseed gave his warning cry in the clearing, and his cautious
tap on the window, and was instantly gone to other clearings and other
windows, it meant that the Indians were near.

Skenedonk and I, used to the night alarm and boots and saddle in a
hurry, put ourselves in readiness to help the family. I groped for
clothing, and shoved small legs and arms into it. The little creatures,
obedient and silent, made no whimper at being roused out of dreams, but
keenly lent themselves to the march.

We brought the horses, and put the woman and children upon them. The
very dogs understood, and slunk around our legs without giving