Tom Lea allows George to help Mingo with the prize-winning chickens more and more. George is amazed at the specific foods given to these birds. He also notices the similarity between Mingo (with his hands scratched so many times by spurs) to the old “catchcocks” (with their many spur scars as well). One day, George hears Mingo telling Tom Lea that there will probably be forty good trained birds for the cockfights this year.

Tom becomes more confident in George's ability to handle his prize birds; therefore, he demands that George leave his mother’s cabin and stay in a new cabin by the chickens that both Mingo and George can build. Of course, the hard part about his new arrangement is telling Kizzy. Feeling the separation in her heart, Kizzy panics in anger and yells, “Massa don’t care nothin’ bout you. He may be yo’ pappy, but he don’t care nothin’ ‘bout nobody but dem chickens!”

George is shocked and chagrined with the news that Tom Lea is George’s father. Silently and tearfully, George packs to move down closer to the chickens. Mingo senses what happened and is extra nice to George, who is “silent and withdrawn” for the very first time in his life. Mingo helps George out of his slump by explaining that these birds need to be George’s family now.

Mingo begins to explain to George how these birds are bred for their aggression and just how important that aggressive trait is. Sure enough, George begins to notice the spur scars on his own arms and hands while handling the birds. Mingo also describes how fearless Tom Lea is in the cockpit. Lea loves nothing more than to pit his cocks against the cocks of some right white plantation owner and win. Mingo admits that the winnings are often incredible.

At fourteen, George leaves the chickens only on Sundays to visit slave row. It is obvious that George has begun to love the chickens he tends now. He shares all of their stories and peculiarities with Kizzy and the other slaves. Of particular interest is the transfer of a stag to a rangewalk. Once a stag rooster is old enough, he is set free in a rangewalk to spike his aggression even more and until he is old enough and ready to train for a fight. When the rangewalk stag is ready to train, Mingo and George would bring out one of the old catchcocks and that stag would immediately charge. George’s job was to catch the stag and put him in a basket. One day, they catch dozens of Lea’s best birds. George is awed by their beauty.

Over the coming weeks, George, Mingo, and Tom Lea train the birds to the best of their ability. They exercise the cocks to exhaustion. Then they make the cocks sweat more of their weight out by putting them in large baskets of straw. Right before they leave for the fight, the men trim the birds' feathers before loading them into traveling coops. George is thrilled when Tom Lea asks George to come along.

As the group gets closer to the big fight, George sees dozens of people arriving with their prize birds. George is beside himself with excitement. Mingo and Lea even let George explore a little bit. His excitement mounts when he sees the cockpit itself. Watching the first of the cockfights is exciting, too. George sees the bets made and the two cocks go at each other like two skilled warriors. However, a cock is simply thrown aside when it’s dead. Suddenly the bird is of no use to the owner anymore. George is not yet able to grasp this lack of sympathy.

When it’s time for Tom Lea’s bird to fight, the cock wins. Instead of happiness, George sees concern and concentration in his idols’ eyes as they inspect the bird for scrapes and ask George to relieve himself on any cuts (to kill bacteria and prevent infection). George is thrilled with the win. “A new gamecocker had been born.”