Opening
A dinner guest exposes a rift that explodes the Sawtelle household and launches Edgar Sawtelle into the wilderness with three young dogs. These chapters pivot the story from simmering suspicion to a raw survival odyssey, testing loyalty, conscience, and the limits of the human-animal bond.
What Happens
Chapter 26: The Texan
Sleepless and furious, Edgar shuts out his mother, Trudy Sawtelle, and especially Almondine, whom he can’t forgive for accepting Claude Sawtelle. Trudy rebukes him for his coldness and orders him back to the house. The next day, as the farm readies a placement for two dogs, Mr. Benson from Texas arrives and talks pedigrees over dinner. Edgar bristles as Claude holds forth as if the kennel’s history and breeding program were his to command.
Then Mr. Benson mentions a “branch contract” and “breeding stock.” Trudy tries to shut Edgar down, but the scheme surfaces anyway: Claude is franchising the kennel with a mail-order company to create a “Caruthers dog,” with Mr. Benson as the first franchisee—a betrayal of the family’s Family and Legacy. Edgar decides he must force a confession.
In the barn, Edgar stages a wordless “play.” One by one, his pups carry syringes (taken from Doctor Papineau’s supplies) and tag a littermate, who drops “dead.” Last, Essay pads straight to Claude and presses a syringe to his leg. Claude flinches, scans for escape, and bolts—proof written on his face of Truth and Deception. Later, in the haymow, Trudy—humiliated and enraged—confronts Edgar. He grabs her in anger. A figure appears at the top of the stairs. Thinking it’s Claude, Edgar strikes with a hay hook. The figure falls. It is Doctor Papineau. Dead. With police on the way (summoned by Glen Papineau), Trudy slaps Edgar and orders him to run. He flees into the night with seven pups, but at a creek crossing only three—Essay, Baboo, and Tinder—follow him over.
Chapter 27: Flight
Edgar and his three dogs plunge into the Chequamegon, the start of his Coming of Age and Loss of Innocence. At dawn he sets two rules: stay off roads; travel west. They skirt a dirt road until a sheriff’s cruiser rolls up. Edgar drags the dogs into ferns as Glen steps out and calls his name. The near-capture clarifies their danger: their scent broadcasts everywhere; the woods are their only cover.
Hunger and mosquitoes grind them down. At a lake, a snapping turtle distracts the dogs; Tinder finds a nest, and they gulp raw eggs. Edgar pockets a few despite his revulsion. As they huddle that night, images of Doctor Papineau’s body and the losses already behind him churn through Edgar—an unrelenting current of Grief and Loss.
Chapter 28: Pirates
Weeks pass. Edgar and the dogs become a traveling pack, their roles sliding from trainer-and-dogs to a survival partnership that embodies The Human-Animal Bond. He turns burglar, slipping through empty cabins for canned food, junk snacks, and—most precious—insect repellent, “that balm of peace and contentment.” He leaves no trace, taking only what they need.
On the Fourth of July, fireworks spatter light across Scotia Lake. The dogs answer a camper’s pet in a long, rising howl; a single, powerful reply peals from the woods—the same lonely call Edgar once heard at the kennel, possibly Forte. Their invisibility shatters when two girls wander near camp. Edgar has the dogs form a gentle guard ring around the younger girl so he can gather their gear and slip away. No one is harmed, but they’ve been seen. The story of a boy with unusual dogs will spread. They move on.
Chapter 29: Outside Lute
Driven from Scotia Lake, Edgar pushes west through days of cold rain. Misery turns him homesick; images of the farm and Almondine cut deep. When the sky finally clears, the forest thins to farmland—progress, but exposure. Starving, they find a small farmhouse below a sunflower field that looks empty. Edgar’s now-practiced burglary yields bread, chips, bratwurst, and honeyed cereal. They gorge; he scrubs evidence and retreats to the sunflowers to sleep.
Later, walking the rails, Tinder yelps—his paw skewered by a jagged glass shard. In a bloody scramble Edgar yanks it free, slicing his own thumb. Tinder can’t walk. Edgar turns back toward the farmhouse they robbed and knocks at the lit back door.
Chapter 30: Henry
A tall, lean man opens the door: Henry Lamb. Seeing the wounded dog and Edgar’s bloodied hand, he brings warm water and a first-aid kit. Edgar, mute, gestures and writes. Henry feeds the dogs leftover stew meat—the same meat Edgar moved to cover the stolen bratwurst—and helps clean and wrap Tinder’s mangled paw. Then he makes an unexpected offer: stay the night.
He lays out blankets in the living room and, before bed, asks if there’s family to call. Edgar shakes his head. Sleep won’t come; the sofa’s quiet and softness feel wrong after the forest. In the morning chaos, Henry emerges, calm: he won’t call the police; he calls Edgar “reckless and unpredictable” and leaves the house unlocked while he’s at work. With Tinder’s paw badly swollen, Edgar decides to accept the shelter. That evening Henry grills bratwurst, a wordless welcome; Edgar supplies a false name—“Nat.” Still restless indoors, he and the dogs bed down on the stoop under the stars.
Character Development
These chapters strip Edgar of the farm’s structures and force him to lead, improvise, and shoulder guilt alone, transforming his relationship with the dogs into a shared language of survival.
- Edgar Sawtelle: From vengeance and isolation to wary leadership; he engineers the “play,” causes an unintended death, and adapts as a stealthy, resourceful fugitive bound to his dogs as packmates.
- Trudy Sawtelle: Reveals steel under shock; in an instant, she chooses protection—banishing her son to save him and, perhaps, preserve her fragile peace with Claude.
- Claude Sawtelle: His composure fractures; the syringe at his leg exposes fear and culpability beneath his swagger about the kennel’s future.
- Henry Lamb: A lonely caretaker whose reflex is compassion; his house becomes a quiet sanctuary where Edgar’s guard lowers enough to trust a stranger—briefly—again.
Themes & Symbols
Flight and exile redefine the story’s stakes. Once Edgar runs, every choice becomes about concealment, sustenance, and the ethics of taking what you need to live. The wilderness strips him down and forges a new identity: not heir to a kennel, but leader of a small, makeshift pack. That identity reframes family as something earned by devotion rather than inherited.
The barn “play” crystallizes performance as communication and weapon. Unable to accuse aloud, Edgar speaks through choreography, training, and the dogs’ precision—an embodiment of Language, Communication, and Silence. Claude’s panic is the confession words could never wring out. Injuries—Tinder’s shredded paw, Edgar’s cut thumb—externalize inner wounds, forcing dependence that counters Edgar’s instinct to disappear. Henry’s kindness answers betrayal with aid, hinting that exile might also hold mercy.
Key Quotes
“Branch contract” and “breeding stock.”
These business phrases turn the Sawtelle legacy into a product line, revealing Claude’s plan to remap a handcrafted lineage into a franchise. The language itself indicts him, collapsing love and lineage into market terms.
“Stay off the roads” and “travel west.”
Edgar’s two rules reduce a chaotic world to a survivable algorithm. The simplicity underscores both his fear of being seen and his growing strategic clarity as a fugitive.
“That balm of peace and contentment.”
His name for insect repellent reframes a small comfort as salvation. In the wilderness, relief from relentless insects becomes symbolic of sanity itself, proof that survival is also about preserving the mind.
“Reckless and unpredictable.”
Henry’s assessment is unflinching yet not condemning. He sees the danger Edgar carries and still chooses trust, establishing a moral counterweight to the harm and deceit that drove Edgar into exile.
“Nat.”
Edgar’s chosen alias is a fragile mask—small, quick, meant to evade capture. The single syllable signals his split from home and the improvisation required to keep himself and the dogs alive.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
This sequence detonates the novel’s turning point. The syringe “play” confirms Edgar’s suspicions and provokes the chain of events that kills Doctor Papineau, exiles Edgar, and shatters the farm’s uneasy balance. In the Chequamegon, the book becomes a survival narrative where the dogs are not symbols but partners, and where trust—once broken at home—reappears in Henry’s spare, practical generosity.
By the time Tinder’s injury forces Edgar back toward human help, the story has moved from suspicion and Betrayal and Revenge to a test of character: can Edgar accept care without surrendering his purpose? These chapters set the emotional and moral conditions for the final act—Edgar hardened by exile, still seeking truth, and newly aware that survival requires both cunning and grace.