in which it is hidden will be flooded to create Arkabutla Lake as part of a new hydroelectric project. Early on in their escape, they try to jump onto a moving train with some hobos, but fall off due to Pete's inability to get on. They then encounter a blind man (Lee Weaver) traveling on a manual railroad car. They hitch a ride, and he foretells their futures. They walk to the house of Pete's cousin, Wash Hogwallop (Frank Collison), who removes their chains, but then turns them in to the police, led by Sheriff Cooley (Daniel von Bargen), because he needs the money. They escape from the barn where they were sleeping, which the authorities have set on fire, and continue on their journey. When they pass a congregation on the banks of a river, Pete and Delmar are enticed by the idea of baptism. As the journey continues, they travel briefly with a young guitarist named Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King). When asked why he was at a crossroad in the middle of nowhere, he reveals that he sold his soul to the devil in exchange for the ability to play the guitar. Tommy describes the devil as being "White, as white as you folks ... with empty eyes and a big hollow voice. He love to travel around with a mean old hound." This description happens to match the policeman who is pursuing the trio. The four of them come across a radio station owned by a blind man (Stephen Root) and record the song "Man of Constant Sorrow", calling themselves the Soggy Bottom Boys. While they initially record the song for some easy money, it later becomes famous around the state, unknown to them as they are on the run. The trio parts ways with Tommy after their car is discovered by police, and they continue their adventures on their own. Among the many encounters they have, the most notable are a car trip and bank robbery with the famous bank robber George Nelson (Michael Badalucco), a run-in with three sirens who seduce the group and drug them with alcohol before seemingly turning Pete into a toad, and a mugging by a one-eyed Bible salesman named Big Dan Teague (John Goodman). Everett and Delmar arrive in Everett?s home town only to find that Everett's wife, Penny (Holly Hunter), is engaged to Vernon T. Waldrip (Ray McKinnon), campaign manager for gubernatorial candidate Homer Stokes (Wayne Duvall). She refuses to take Everett back and is so ashamed of him that she has been telling their daughters he was hit by a train and killed. While watching a film in a cinema, Everett and Delmar discover that Pete is still alive, the sirens having turned him in to collect the bounty on his head. After Everett and Delmar rescue him from jail, Pete tells them that he gave up the location of the treasure. Everett reveals that there was never any treasure; he only mentioned it to persuade the other men to escape so he could reconcile with his wife. Pete is outraged at this news, primarily because he had only had two weeks left on his original sentence, which has now been extended 50 years in light of his escape. As Everett scuffles with Pete, the group stumbles upon a Ku Klux Klan lynch mob, who have caught Tommy and are about to hang him. The three disguise themselves as the mob's color guard and attempt a rescue. Big Dan, one of the Klansmen, reveals their identities, and chaos ensues, in which the Grand Wizard of the gathering reveals himself as Stokes. The four flee the scene with Everett cutting the supports of a large burning cross, which falls on, crushes and incinerates some of the Klansmen ('Big Dan' included) causing chaos among the ranks of the lynch mob. Everett convinces Pete, Delmar, and Tommy to help him win his wife back. They sneak into a Stokes campaign dinner that she is attending posing as musicians, disguised as old men. Everett tries to convince his wife that he is "bona fide", but she brushes him off. The group begins an impromptu musical performance, during which the crowd recognizes them as the Soggy Bottom Boys and goes wild. Stokes, on the other hand, recognizes them as the group who disgraced his mob and shouts for the music to stop, angering the crowd. After he reveals his white supremacist views, the crowd runs him out of town on a rail. Pappy O'Daniel (Charles Durning), the sitting state governor of Mississippi, seizes the opportunity and endorses the Soggy Bottom Boys, granting all of them a full pardon while the entire event is being recorded and played on the radio. Penny accepts Everett back, but she demands that he find her original ring if they are to be married. As they leave the dinner, they run into a mob taking a jubilant George Nelson to die in the electric chair. Delmar comments, "Looks like George is right back on top again." The group sets out with Tommy to retrieve the ring, which is at a cabin in the valley that Everett originally claimed to have hidden the treasure in. When they arrive, the police order their arrest and hanging. Everett protests, stating that they had been pardoned on the radio, but the policeman pursuing them ignores their pleas. The three begin to despair while Everett improvises a prayer to be saved. Suddenly, the valley is flooded and they are saved from their hanging. Tommy finds the ring in a desk that he is floating on in the new lake, and they return to town. However, when Everett presents the ring to Penny, she tells him it is the wrong one and demands that he get her ring back. As Everett protests the futility of trying to find it at the bottom of the lake, the blind prophet the trio met earlier rolls by on his railway handcar.

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