Back at the cabin, Roy prepares for the robbery. Despite Pa's earlier warning that Velma is infatuated with a wealthy young man back East, Roy hopes to win her over, but she is only interested in men her own age. Roy returns to Los Angeles to see Velma, who is recuperating from the operation. Sympathetic Roy agrees to let her stay, but makes it clear that she will never mean anything to him. Roy slugs Babe and offers to pay for Marie's bus fare to Los Angeles, but she is falling in love with Roy and after refusing his offer, she tells him about her escape from a cruel father.
When Roy returns to the cabin, he finds that Babe has hit Marie and gotten in a fight with Red. With the help of Mac's physician, Doc Banton, Roy arranges to pay for a specialist to operate on Velma's foot.
Concerned about his health, Mac gives Roy written instructions about how to proceed in case something happens to him. Although Mac acknowledges that Roy is one of the few "professionals" left, he brushes aside Roy's apprehension about the amateurish henchmen. Because the robbery is scheduled for the peak of the tourist season, when more jewelry will be stored in the safe, Roy has time to travel to Los Angeles to visit his old friend Big Mac, who is bedridden with illness. Before Roy leaves, Pa invites Roy to visit them in Los Angeles. After helping them, Roy joins the family for dinner, and becomes attracted to Velma, whom he discovers was born with a clubfoot. While scouting Tropico, Roy again encounters the Goodhues, who are involved in a traffic accident. Chico, who maintains the camp, warns Roy that the dog's three former owners died. Pard, a little dog hanging around the camp, takes a liking to Roy, who has a soft heart despite his steely demeanor. Although he usually remains aloof, Roy tells Marie how he survived the mental torment of prison by fantasizing about jumping to freedom forty feet out of his cell block. She warns him that Mendoza boasted about the robbery to her. Roy is displeased that the men have picked up taxi dancer Marie Garson and orders her to leave, but soon relents. He later meets Louis Mendoza, a Tropico hotel clerk working with them, whom Roy judges as unreliable. At the hideout, Roy meets Babe and Red, the inexperienced young thugs ordered to assist him. Kranmer conveys Mac's orders that Roy is to rob a hotel safe in the resort town of Tropico and then directs him to some cabins known as Shaw's Camp, where his accomplices are waiting.
Afterward, Roy proceeds to his scheduled rendezvous with Jack Kranmer, an ex-policeman whom he immediately distrusts. At the next gas station, the driver, Pa Goodhue, a displaced farmer en route to Los Angeles, thanks Roy for averting the accident and introduces his wife and nineteen-year-old granddaughter Velma.
Whitney, Roy skillfully avoids colliding with an antiquated Ford, when its driver loses control.
While serving a life sentence in Illinois, Roy Earle is pardoned through the machinations of gangster boss, Big Mac, who then orders him to come out west.