CHAPTER 23
Rejected
EARLY the next morning Tom left the encampment and headed eastward. He was greatly encouraged at the reception he had received from this first group of Indians, and he hoped that all the others would be of the same mind. He had some doubt, however, concerning a large band about fifteen miles away. Numerous young people were there, who more than the rest had become completely infatuated with the ways of Belial. They, like a certain class in modern society of white folks, looked with contempt upon the old-fashioned ways of their parents. They scoffed at the Gikhi and his teaching as out of date, or suitable only for women and children. Their chief delight was to visit the nearest town, array themselves in the finest clothes they could buy, strut up and down the streets, displaying their cheap and gaudy jewelry. Had they stopped at that it would not have been so bad. But they did far worse, both young men and women alike.
Tom knew of all this, yet he hoped that out in the mountains, away from such contaminating influences, they would more readily listen to his message, and that their hearts would be touched by the condition of their once beloved Gikhi. He believed that they had not wandered so far but that they could be induced to return to the right way. Anyway, he considered it his
duty to speak to them. So much in earnest was this
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