At three o’clock, a storm breaks over the road. Garraty welcomes the rain at first because it cools him and briefly lifts his fatigue, while the other walkers protect what they can: Harkness saves his notebook, Barkovitch puts on a yellow rainhat, and Stebbins hunches over the remains of a jelly sandwich. As the shower eases, Pearson joins Garraty, McVries urinates while walking and takes a warning for slowing, and Olson quietly admits that his legs feel strange and “baggy.” McVries tells Olson the feeling passed for him, which briefly calms Olson.

Soon after, another walker is shot for repeated slowing; Garraty never even learns the boy’s name. The walkers continue through fields and crossroads as the day stretches on, and Garraty drifts between exhaustion and reflection, trying to believe the Walk must mean something. Davidson reports that Zuck, who fell at the railroad tracks, is still bleeding badly, and Garraty begins following the drops of blood on the pavement. Olson’s fear grows more visible, and he starts smoking and shouting at the soldiers in a near-hysterical effort to assert himself.

As sunset approaches, Zuck receives a third warning and suddenly bolts ahead in a desperate limp. The halftrack follows him over the rise, and after a long silence the walkers hear two shots, making it clear that Zuck has been killed out of sight. Gribble erupts and calls the Major a murderer, but nearly earns a warning himself when he slows in panic. Around supper time, Garraty forces himself to ration his food, then falls into a conversation with Baker and McVries about the Prize, money, comfort, and death. Garraty argues that wealth is meaningless if death can come at any moment, exposing how completely the Walk has narrowed his thinking to survival one day, or one hour, at a time.

Near five o’clock, Olson drops his food belt and is too shaken to recover it. Garraty gives Olson his cheese, but Olson continues to fade as twilight deepens. Garraty feels the oppressive silence, misses Jan and his mother, and tries to steady himself by thinking only of the next milestone. Then word spreads that Travin has diarrhea. Garraty watches in disgust and terror as Travin keeps squatting despite the warnings, unable to control his body; when Travin half-falls again, the soldiers shoot him where he is. The ugly, bodily reality of that death strips away any remaining illusion or grandeur from the contest.

In the last stretch before Caribou, the walkers pass cheering teenagers, a graveyard, and growing pockets of fog while McVries and Olson clash over Olson’s talk of giving up. Garraty stops McVries from pushing Olson too hard, insisting that Olson must face the ordeal his own way. Full dark arrives by six-thirty, and Caribou appears ahead as a glow on the horizon. Entering town, the walkers are met by crowds, television lights, a roaming reporter, signs for the Major, and even a store owner illegally offering free soft drinks. Barkovitch boasts to Garraty and others that he told the reporter he feels strong and plans to outlast everyone, while the group presses on through downtown Caribou, now forty-four miles from the start.