“What! has Hull surrendered?”
“Even so, Israel is again in captivity, and the families on her borders must feel the fire now.”
The trapper was silent for a while.
“Then the red-coated and red-skinned devils are coming to devastate the frontiers,” he said, in a tone scarcely audible.
“Their forces no man can number,” said the strange herald. “They are like the sands of the sea-shore. But I must go. I am appointed to deliver my message before every door in the forest, that the Lord’s chosen may flee from the wrath to come.”
“Then go, Johnny. I should not have detained you a minute. Yours is an errand of mercy. I have a duty to perform this night. Go, Johnny; tell them all of the swoop of the red eagles; and tell them that Wolf Cap says, ‘Fly to the block-houses without delay!’”
The pioneer hero started forward, but paused after taking a step, and drew the portion of an old volume from his bosom.
“Here news right fresh from heaven,” he said, and he tore a leaf from the book and handed it to the trapper.
It was a leaf from Swedenborg’s writings, for Johnny Appleseed—Jonathan Chapman—is no myth, and he was a true disciple of the Swedish seer.
Having accomplished his duty, the strange man, clad in nothing save a garment fashioned from a coffee sack, and bearing a long distaff, started off to spread dismay throughout the fire-lands.