The "Rumor" concerning the albums cover
This was not a rumor. It was true. I don't know how one would prove it except to get one of the original album covers. My brother showed it to me in 1968. It was quite obvious once you knew to look. The faces were camouflaged in the bark at the top of the tree. It was clearly a reference, a comment, and an inversion of the Beatle’s Sergeant Pepper album, which John Wesley Harding musically was as well, being a retreat from the sonic experimentation fueled by "Pepper" and a return or a retreat to a simpler, sound.