"It's not the rat in the corn, that happens all the time. It's the corn in the rat."

After resting in Denver for a few days, the group answers a call to the local Pinkerton offices, where they meet a man named Mr. Lawless and he shows them the problem. It's an ear of corn. Except it's not - it's a strange corn-rat, with husks on its back and kernels on its stomach. It was found dead in a shipment of corn from New Sweden in south Wyoming. Dr. Vorpwhistle examines it and eats a kernel off its stomach. Tastes like corn.

"Don't eat the supernatural things."
- Cady

They decide there are a bunch of different options for how this could have happened, and several of them are just bad. Mr. Lawless asks them to accompany him to New Sweden to find out what the problem is and deal with it, and they (feeling indebted to the Pinkertons) agree. A day on the train to Cheyenne, and then two days on the trail brings them to the little town of New Sweden, surrounded by lush corn fields in the process of being harvested.

They ask around the first afternoon and don't find out about anything particularly strange. Lawless wants to play it quiet, so they don't just out and ask about corn-rats, but about strange things and diseased rats and so on. They do manage to find a few of the corn-rats in the fields, but the things can be hard to see.

Talking to people, they find out that the town has only been selling corn this season, having built some silos and a big stable last year and finished their irrigation system the year before. Before that they didn't have enough corn to sell or the means to sell it. In fact, they load up some big wagons that afternoon and ship out the corn, which leads Lawless to turn right back around and go to Cheyenne to ensure that the shipment is quietly stopped. He leaves them with some Greek fire and oil just in case things get out of hand and they need to clean things up with fire. They have a nice dinner with the shopkeeper, Hiram Guggins, at which they eat a lot of corn-based food.

One of several theories floating around by that evening as they make camp in the hay loft of the stable is that the town has done Something Awful in order to get the corn harvest, or that it's built on a burial ground and the corn rats are the spiritual revenge, so Cady tries to use penetrating gaze to look under the silos. Instead, she gets lured into the corn fields by her manitous and attacked by an animated scarecrow that blasts her with corn rats and gashes her. Luckily, Tobey went after her with Ginger after she vanished and arrives quickly on the scene, de-pumpkin-itating the scarecrow, which collapses. Robert reveals a new shamanistic trick when he asks Buffalo to cure Cady's wounds. They go back to read a bit in Rascals, Varmints, and Critters about scarecrows, and decide they should look and see if there was some sort of massacre.

The next day they visit the town Reverend and talk some about history. There don't seem to be any massacres in the town's fifteen year history, or unusual amounts of fever, or families suddenly moving away. After that fruitless morning, they take corn muffins from the Reverend (he's gotten too many from one of the families to eat himself) and head to the local river. A few hours riding up and down the river convinces them that the irrigation system is not the source of the evil (and after the scarecrow, they're pretty sure there's capital E Evil). They come back and help with the harvesting some in order to talk to the farmers. Sally Svenson, the seventeen year old daughter of one of the first families in town, notices Robert and gets her father to invite the group to dinner.

Before dinner, Robert travels into the spirit realm (a lot of corn there too) and contacts Eagle, who mostly thinks this is white man trouble. Eagle does warn Robert when a twelve foot tall woman made out of corn husks and stalks comes up behind him and tries to grab him. He evades her long enough to get out of the spirit realm, and decides that she was an evil spirit of unusual size, as it were.

At dinner, Cady tells a lot of stories in which Robert comes out the hero, and Sally makes eyes at him. Robert is not really comfortable with the whole thing. Afterwards, the posse returns to the stable to discuss things, and Dr. Vorpwhistle puts together Robert's description of the corn woman spirit's unusual goaty back legs, the fertility of the fields, and the lack of small children around town... and gets... well, nothing yet. But they seem to hold together. Everyone else realizes that in fact there have been no children seen younger than three or four. Several of the women are pregnant, however. Could there be some sort of child sacrifice thing going on?

"... slay the entire town for being evil."
"Whoa! Are you evil?"
"No."
- exchange during the discussion

Later that night, Sally tries to sneak in to the loft, presumably after Robert, but is routed when he and Bart (on watch) awaken everyone else. She runs home afterwards, quietly slipping back into her house.

MM: The posse frequently contemplates asking "What horrible things did you do to generate cornrats?" but shows great restraint.

MM: Another theory for the lack of children: everything in the last five years has had an extra dose of corn-ness, and that ain't right in an infant (ie mercy killings instead of sacrifices).