Summary

Narration describes how Grainier got work on a series of construction projects that took him further and further away from Gladys and Kate, commenting that he had been a bachelor for a long time and found it easy to slip back into the rhythms while he was working. These jobs, narration reveals, involved him working on the construction of another couple of bridges that also involve movement through close-growing forests.

On one job, building a bridge over the Robinson Gorge, narration describes how one of the other workers on his gang, the elderly Arn Peeples, was full of stories and wisdom but not full of lies. In the middle of the chapter, narration shifts focus away from Grainier and onto Arn and his stories, one of which has to do with the relationship between trees and the men that cut them down. Trees, he...