At 3:30 a.m., Ray Garraty hits the lowest point of the night. More boys have died, including Davidson, and the Walk has reached seventy-five miles with twenty-six dead. Half-delirious, Garraty fixates on the road and fantasizes about the relief of sitting down, but he knows that if he stops he will die. He becomes briefly disoriented, panics that he has lost his friends, and then steadies himself by locating Abraham and the others. A warning of his own shocks him back into alertness, and he remembers his promise to meet his mother and Jan in Freeport.

As dawn slowly approaches, Garraty reflects on death, recalling the funeral of a childhood acquaintance and realizing how grotesquely different the Walk’s killings are from the neat idea of death he once had. When daylight finally begins to break, his spirits rise sharply. He finds McVries, Baker, and Olson still alive, and the returning light makes the survivors briefly hopeful and talkative. Garraty, McVries, and Baker joke about betting on the Walk, girls, and their odds, trying to reclaim some normality as the sun comes up.

That fragile good mood breaks when a dirty joke about the Major passes down the line. McVries suddenly turns his anger on the soldiers, shouting abuse, charging the halftrack, and daring them to come down and fight. He draws repeated warnings and comes within moments of being shot. Garraty impulsively runs back toward him, risking his own warnings, and physically shoves McVries away from the halftrack. McVries resumes walking, but he is badly shaken and bitterly insists that there is no real winner in the Long Walk, only different ways of losing.

Afterward Stebbins speaks to Garraty, calmly noting that extra halftracks mean the Major is coming. Stebbins predicts that the boys will cheer instead of resisting because they do not yet hate the system enough, and he confidently states that he expects to win. Soon the Major arrives in his jeep, saluting as he passes. Stebbins is proved right: although a few boys show contempt, many others, including Garraty, cheer. Garraty feels an involuntary swell of pride and then shame for wasting energy and responding as expected.

As the morning brightens and spectators begin to appear in earnest, the Walk moves through a more settled landscape of houses, businesses, and roadside signs. Garraty quarrels briefly with Collie Parker after Parker insults Maine, then retreats into thoughts of Jan, who has become less a simple girlfriend than a symbol of life and survival. The chapter ends with another close call when Harkness develops a crippling foot cramp. Garraty cannot help him, and Harkness stops to remove his shoe, drawing successive warnings while children and other walkers watch. The guns repeatedly rise and lower on him, but the cramp finally loosens, Harkness recovers his pace, and his escape reminds Garraty how fragile the bond among the remaining walkers is: if one member of their shrinking circle can break, any of them can.