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During dinner, Aaron’s adopted son, part-Cherokee (one-eighth) Martin »Marty« Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), an orphan saved years earlier by Ethan from an Indian slaughter and raised by the family, rides a horse bareback (Indian-style) and bursts into the doorway [another framed doorway motif, linking the two characters] to meet Ethan.

Ben and Debbie open the front door [a framing device], catching Brad Jorgensen (Harry Carey, Jr.) and Lucy, two sweethearts, hugging each other.

Framed by the remains of a smoking, burning doorway, Ethan squats and surveys the dead, imagining the torture that three family members suffered, including Martha’s rape.

Two years later, they arrive back at the Jorgensen’s homestead, where the homesteaders emerge from the doorway into the light of the outside when they ride into view, similar to the opening of the film.

As Laurie bereftly stares out the front door at the sunset, lonely and thinking of Martin, Charlie casually strolls up behind her, strumming his guitar and singing: »Gone again, skip to my Lou, gone again, skip to my Lou, gone again, skip to my Lou, skip to my Lou my darling.« As she turns to him, the scene dissolves to a long view of Ethan and Martin riding along a ridge in front of a sunset.