Suddenly True Son realizes what he has done: he has betrayed his brothers. No one welcomes him, and even Half Arrow turns away. True Son cannot make them understand what he did because he does not understand it himself.

After some deliberation, True Son’s hands and feet are bound and one half of his face is painted black with charcoal while the other half is painted white with clay from the river bank. This means the council is divided and he will therefore be tried in the Lenape fashion. True Son will either be burned alive (the black side) or be allowed to live (the white side).

Thitpan argues that True Son chose white people over Indians, so there is no Indian blood in his veins. Each man throws a stick into the fire, indicating his vote to burn True Son. Half Arrow sees how the vote is going and runs off into the woods; Cuyloga votes last.

True Son is certain his father is also going to throw his stick into the fire; however, Cuyloga reaches down and takes a charred stick. Silently he blackens his entire face and then turns to the others. He is an impressive figure, and his eyes flash in his dark face. Cuyloga says he raised True Son, taught him in all his ways; Cuyloga knows his son, and True Son is like Cuyloga. If True Son is “double-tongued and a spy,” so is Cuyloga; they should burn the father who is responsible for his son’s bad instruction. He will not allow them to burn his son because of their wounded pride, and he could not face True Son’s mother if he did not do something to prevent it.

Cuyloga quickly cuts his son’s bindings and waits for the others to attack. No one moves. Cuyloga is formidable and magnificent, but now he turns on True Son. He reminds the boy that he was adopted into Cuyloga’s family and treated, like his name, as a true son. Never did he expect True Son to act like anything other than a true Indian, but it has happened. True Son assures his father that the white man is his enemy and he will never return to them, but Cuyloga looks at him with pity before speaking again. Although True Son’s heart is Indian, his blood is thin like white people’s. They must part now, and the path between them will be closed. They are no longer father and son, and if they meet in battle they will be enemies.

True Son is stunned, but in silence both men pick up their packs and exchange a long farewell look. The next day, when the path they are on crosses a white man’s path, Cuyloga bleakly announces this is where they must part. True Son no longer has an Indian father, and his path leads only to a life of self-imposed restraints and emptiness, the opposite of the “wild beloved freedom of the Indians.”