Part III, Chapter 3 Summary

Mary tells Johnny that Tom is drinking too much, so Johnny takes the booze away from Tom, distracting him by asking him to tell the story of China Pit, the name given to the copper mine. The group settles down uneasily in the dark theater, while the storm continues to batter the old building, and unbeknownst to them, a Tak-directed deadly cougar hovers outside.

Tom says back in the 1800s, the mine was dangerous and the owner could not get white men to work it so he hired Chinese. There was a massive cave-in with forty of the Chinese men inside. The owners of the mine, wealthy white men from the East Coast, decided that since it was just Chinese men and not white men trapped in there, it was not worth their time or effort to free them...