"Does he never show himself?"
"Oh, yes," Skenedonk said. "He goes to all the settlements. I have often seen him when I was hunting on these grounds. He came to our camp. He loves to sleep outdoors better than in a cabin."
"Why does he shout at us like a prophet?"
"To warn us that Indians are on the warpath."
"He might have thought we were on the warpath ourselves."
"Johnny Appleseed knows Shawanoes and Tecumseh's men."
The trees, lichened on their north sides, massed rank behind rank without betraying any face in their glooms. The Ohio and Indiana forests had a nameless quality. They might have been called home-forests, such invitations issued from them to man seeking a spot of his own. Nor can I make clear what this invitation was. It produced thoughts different from those that men were conscious of in the rugged northwest.
"I think myself," said Skenedonk, as we moved farther from the invisible voice, "that he is under a vow. But nobody told me that."
"Why do you think so?"
"He plants orchards in every fine open spot; or clears the land for planting where he thinks the soil is right."