Elmira is glad to have escaped, but the buffalo hunters and whiskey traders on the boat are a rough crowd. She only talks to a man named Fowler. Occasionally, she reflects on the fact that she never wanted her son and waited twelve years to get away from him.

There is a fight one morning. A buffalo trader called Big Zwey kills a man who has been talking about taking advantage of Elmira. Fowler says Zwey protected her because he wants to marry her. She never talks to Zwey, and he never speaks to her, but he watches her. She is annoyed that another man is already trying to own her.

Roscoe hates traveling as he follows July. A day after leaving, he meets a farmer named Louisa Brooks who is pulling stumps in the woods. She gives Roscoe an axe and tells him to work. She’s frustrated with his ineptitude and can’t believe he’s a deputy. Over supper, she tells him to stay and marry her. She proposes a test run. Roscoe demurs and sleeps in the shed. He wakes to Louisa straddling him. They have sex and he’s embarrassed that the chickens are watching. In the morning, he says that he will see her on the way back and make a decision.