The next morning, the young man tells his father that he has been hit on the head by an Indian. He tells him that the fight took place several days ago, and that his brothers were defeated. The young man asks his father why he hasn't come home yet, and his father replies that he is waiting for the boy's father, who has been waiting for him all day. The father tells the boy that he knows who the boy has been with all this time, and he knows that the boy is a "mess." The father says that when the blacks first arrived in the area twenty years ago, they didn't want to harm the town or the boy, but they did want to find gold. He says that the mistake of his life was not to leave them alone for their mother, because the robber who murdered her was one of the gold diggers.