Sam Fathers, who teaches Isaac Old Ben's ways, says that it will take an extraordinary dog to bring Old Ben down. Isaac sees Old Ben several times. Once, they send a tiny fyce-dog with no sense of danger after him, and Isaac has a shot at the huge bear. But instead of taking the shot, Isaac runs after the fyce and dives to save him from the bear. Isaac looks up at Old Ben looming over him and remembers the image from his dreams about the bear. At last they find a dog capable of bringing Old Ben to bay: Lion, a huge, wild Airedale Terrier mix with extraordinary courage and savagery. Sam makes Lion semi-tame by starving him until he will allow himself to be touched; soon, Boon Hogganbeck has devoted himself to Lion and even shares a bed with him. Using Lion, they nearly catch Old Ben, but Boon misses five point-blank shots. General Compson hits the bear and draws blood, but Old Ben escapes into the forest. Isaac and Boon go into Memphis to buy whisky for the men, and the next day, they go after the bear again. General Compson declares that he wants Isaac to ride Kate, the only mule who is not afraid of wild animals and, therefore, the best chance any of the men have to get close enough to the bear to kill him. In the deep woods, near the river, Lion leaps at Old Ben and takes hold of his throat. Old Ben seizes Lion and begins shredding his stomach with its claws. Boon draws his knife and throws himself on top of the bear, stabbing it in its back. Old Ben dies, and a few days later, Lion dies. Sam Fathers collapses after the fight and dies not long after Lion. Lion and Sam are buried in the same clearing. Isaac returns to the farm near Jefferson, to the old McCaslin plantation. Time passes; eventually he is 21, time for him to assume control of the plantation, which is his by inheritance. But he renounces it in favor of his older cousin (once-removed), McCaslin Edmonds. Isaac has a long argument with McCaslin in which Isaac declares his belief that the land cannot be owned, that the curse of God's Earth is man's attempt to own the land, and that curse has led to slavery and the destruction of the South.