Section 4 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD is made up of Chapter 6, Chapter 7 and Interlude #4. This section describes the Bannon family move to Aven, Buck's scandalous relationship with Big Vic and Buck's leadership in laying out the street plan for the town of Aven. It's about August of 1890 so Buck is only 21 years old but in the three years since leaving home, Buck's general store and payday loan business in Aven have already made him a wealthy young man. 

One of the most important literary achievements of the novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD is the synthesis of the maturation of a man named Buck Bannon with the simultaneous development of the railroad boom town of Aven. The time and place of this 30 year-long saga of American enterprise are a potential point of confusion for the reader because the first date mentioned in the book comes on page 215 and in the first 58 pages, the only clue as to the geographical location of Aven is that it is located in "a small corner of Alabama" that's probably a day's train ride away from Albany, Georgia. The author's avoidance of a narrow identification of his fictional places and characters may have been his attempt to have the reader view the events of the novel as events that could have occurred anywhere in which similar conditions prevailed and that the people portrayed in the book could exist wherever human beings live.

Any confusion produced by this intentional ambiguity fades away when one understands that the present-day city of Dothan, Alabama is called "Aven" in the novel. Anyone familiar with Dothan's people, history and geography has no problem understanding where the author found inspiration for the creation of his fictional place and characters. A literary critic in the September 12, 1948 ATLANTA CONSTITUTION stated it well when he wrote, "DEVIL MAKE A THIRD rings true as an exciting portrait of a strong man and a bustling town. Perhaps it is more so because of the author's peculiar qualifications. For Dougie Bailey is a native of Dothan, the locale of his  novel, and also comes from a family of strong men, any one of whom might have served as a pattern for Buck Bannon."

Chapter 6 opens with 21 year-old Buck daydreaming while leaning up against a tree located across St. Simon Street from the big unpainted house he just finished building for his family to move into when they roll into town on their wagons later that afternoon. Buck served as architect, building materials supplier, construction supervisor and interior decorator for this project and he's justly proud of his accomplishment because the location of the Aven city block of land he bought to build it on was across the street from his store so he was able to work on the house without it interfering with business at his store. Buck tells himself,"A man oughtn't to live over two hoe handles from his business." 

Buck's life on the streets of Aven never changes the rural aphorisms that pepper his thoughts and his speech. "A hoe handle away" or "half a hoe handle away" was an expression familiar to most 19th-century American rural folk coast-to-coast to indicate close proximity.  For the rest of the novel, the contrast between "life in the country" and "life in Aven" will be highlighted by the Aven residents preferring their rural vocabulary and table fare to whatever current food and fashion that's being offered by their newly founded railroad town. Eighteen chapters later in the novel, this preference for "all things rural" by early Aven residents begins to drive the novel's action after Buck's mother receives notice that she has a terminal case of cancer.

Buck's innocent daydream about his family's future in the big house he's built for them is interrupted by a question asked by a curious member of Aven's business community, an old mule trader. He asked, "Plannin' to fill it up someday?" Buck assures the old fellow that the house will certainly be filled but the children will be his brothers and sisters. Buck's success in town brought him to the attention of Aven's commercial interests and Buck's future prosperity will be insured by these commercial and political ties.

When the Bannon family arrives at their new home, Joe Bannon is more impressed with the soil of his house lot than he is with the house Buck built for him. He tells Buck,"Somethin' ought to grow there," pleased with Aven land's potential for gardening. Mr. Bannon goes on to tell Buck about the next crop that would be harvested on the land they just sold before moving to Aven, "Boy, you ain't never seen nothin' like the way that land was yeastin' when we sold. I figure the crop to come was what got us the price." Buck replies, "It was pretty good dirt." This comment is significant because it's the first time in the novel where Buck ever complimented the Bannon farm.