DEVIL MAKE A THIRD is the near three decade story of man whose every action seems to be driven by the profit motive and the desire to dominate yet he is burdened by a conscience which forces him  him to maintain his self respect by acts of devotion, kindness and loyalty to his few friends and family. The novel is composed of 13 sections which cover a period of approximately 28 years from 1887 to 1915. Each section is made up of multiple chapters and an interlude which the author uses to advance his timeline. No dates are used in the novel but Chapter 1 to Chapter 15 which make up the first seven sections of the novel cover the period from 1887 until the early 1890s. INTERLUDE 7 advances the action ten years with the fictional town of Aven going from a frontier boom town into a small urban area with paved streets, a water works, power plant, telephone company and all the other innovations of a turn-of-the-century urban area. All of the 33 chapters show us the world from the perspective of the protagonist, Buck Bannon and the 12 interludes describe Buck Bannon from the perspective of two railroad brakemen, Jake and Bascom.

Section 1 of Devil Make A Third consists of Chapter 1, Chapter 2 and the first Interlude. Virtually all of the action of the protagonist, Buck Baker, has a commercial motive or a selfish action driven by the desire to make money.

 The author never implies that Buck has been anywhere outside the family farm other than an occasional wagon ride to the mill or a walk to the schoolhouse. The reader has no reason to believe that Buck has ever been to town or even to have seen a train but he's learned enough that he knows he never wants another tool job. From page 24, "Tool jobs make corns on a man's hands and when he gets through he's so tired he ain't got sense enough to spend his money right."

page 13: "Mother, this is the last time I'll ever follow a mule. I got twenty dollars and I'm headin' to town."

page 15: "When I was twelve I went to mill and back and made the trade. That was near as far as Aven."

page 16: "that time when he was eleven and had to quit school to help in the fields- and his Blue Back speller that cost a quarter bushel of meal"

page 24: "The place a man starts at ain't the thing-it's where he ends up that counts."