Using the flint that was in the bag left by the Woolman, Liz struggles to start a fire, then roasts the muskrats that were also in the bag. After eating, she bathes in the river and puts on the worn jacket and shoes from the bag. Liz walks to a road and hides herself, waiting for a ride.

Hours pass and Liz considers drowning herself in the river, but each time something in the woods distracts her: “She had the strangest feeling ever since leaving Patty Cannon’s attic, a kind of awareness that seemed to lay new discoveries at her feet at the oddest moments” (78). Her head hurts, but not with the pain of her injury. She finds that she can accurately predict the actions of animals, which distracts her from thoughts of suicide.

Liz realizes that these discoveries are diverting her attention away from the idea that had been foremost in her mind for years—that she hates white men. Before he died, she had once told Uncle Hewitt that white men were inherently evil. Uncle Hewitt had tried to convince her not to keep that hate in her heart but to leave everything in the hands of God since chance is “an instrument of God” (80).