Stanley and Mr. Sir visit the Warden’s house. Mr. Sir tells the Warden about the stolen sunflower seeds and that he thinks Stanley is covering up for one of the other boys. The Warden has Stanley get her makeup case from the other room and tells him about her special red nail polish made out of rattlesnake venom. She puts the nail polish on and says that it is only painful while the polish is wet. The Warden strikes Mr. Sir’s face, leaving “three long red marks slanging across the left side of his face” (91). She tells him that she doesn’t care about his sunflower seeds and he starts to scream from pain. The Warden tells Stanley to go back to his hole and that Mr. Sir won’t die.

As Stanley is walking back to his hole, he thinks about how the outlaw Kissin’ Kate Barlow robbed his great-grandfather and left him to die in the desert. His great-grandfather said he survived by “God’s thumb” but nobody knows what he meant (93). When Stanley reaches his hole, he notices that it is finished already. He thanks the boys, but none of them take credit for digging his hole.