The next morning, the four hobbits left the Inn after breakfast and rode eastward along the main road. The rain had stopped during the night, but the day was more chilly than the one before, and traces of frost remained on the grass where the sun had not yet touched. They went past the lane to Noddy's farm without stopping; a few miles beyond, the road turned toward the southeast and cut through the woods on its way to Stock and Woodhall. It would eventually take them to Bucklebury Ferry if they remained on it long enough, but soon after the foursome had entered the wood, Frodo slowed his pony to a walk and began to look for cart-tracks.
"You said that this circus had a caravan," he explained to Merry and the others as he peered at the ground under the trees on either side of the road. "Waggons, carts, horses and at least one pony. If they mean to hide--as I believe they do--they wouldn't settle where anyone might stumble upon them by accident. They've gone deep into the wood. Those heavy wheels must have left some trace."
"But they passed this way at least two weeks ago," said Merry.
"Yes, I know, but I hope something remains to show which way they went," Frodo replied. "It will save us searching through acres of trees if they have."
His companions agreed that they could think of better ways to spend the day than wandering the woods, and joined in the search. It was Pippin who spotted the wheel ruts in the mud of a creek bed, and cried out, "Could that be it, Frodo?"
Frodo thought it was. They left the road to follow the tracks. The recent rain had washed them away in some places, but enough traces of the wheels and horses' hooves remained to guide the hobbits in the right direction. The creek ran westward away from the road, down into a gulley that soon widened into a dell, leading them back in a roundabout way toward the woods behind the Ferndingle Farm. A light mist lay on the lowest ground, and the underbrush grew more thickly here. Broken branches and crushed dead ferns showed where the waggon had left the creek bed and cut its own path through the trees.
The four hobbits were following this path, when a voice very like the one Frodo and Sam had heard the night before suddenly boomed: "WHO DARES ENTER THESE WOODS?"
The ponies danced and reared, startled by the noise, and would have fled if their riders had not kept a firm hand on the reins.
A bright orange light appeared before them, catching the low-lying mists and shimmering like a wall of flame, but it gave off no heat and did not scorch the trees even as it flickered between them. Frodo thought that the sight would look quite impressive at night, but it appeared rather pale in the mid-morning.
His pony was still dancing skittishly; he dismounted and handed the reins to Sam, who had also climbed down. Merry and Pippin likewise left their ponies and tied them to nearby bushes.
As Frodo walked toward the orange wall of light, the voice boomed again: "TURN BACK, TRESPASSERS, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!"
He kept on walking, until he had passed through the light. Then he shouted, "I'm weary of these games. Enough is enough! Come out and talk!"
The woods were silent.
Sam remained behind him, trying to quiet the nervous ponies, but his cousins had disappeared. Frodo waited. After a few minutes had passed, there was a shout, a crash, and some furious rustling in the underbrush, and then Merry and Pippin emerged, dragging another hobbit between them. The strange hobbit struggled as the two brought him forward, and fell to the ground on his hands and knees before Frodo when they let him go.
"Are you Nobold Ferndingle?" Frodo asked him.
"He isn't," said Sam as he joined them; he remembered Noddy's brother quite well.
"No, I'm not Nob," the hobbit answered.
"He's Dorryk Thistlecombe," said Merry.
"From Archet," Pippin added. "We met him last night at the Inn."
"But you know Nobold," Frodo pursued the question. "Is he with you? I'd like to speak with him."
"He's here," Dorryk admitted as he climbed to his feet.
"And what're you doing here, making this mischief in our Shire woods?" Sam demanded.
"I was just keeping watch, if not very well," Dorryk grinned ruefully, but he did not seem at all abashed at having been caught. "We thought you might be coming into the wood again today." He turned to Merry. "You see, we were waiting for the same people after all--Only you knew who they were, and I didn't! We wondered who your friends might be when we led 'em a chase last night. Mr. Grimmold sent me to the Inn to try and find out."
"Mr. Grimmold?" Merry repeated the name.
"He's our manager. Now, tell me who you are. You aren't friends of Noddy's, not so many gents."
Frodo told him.
"Of course!" Noddy exclaimed. "The investigator! I've heard the story of the missing jewels. Very well, I'll take you to Nob, if you insist, but I expect Mr. Grimmold'll want to meet you too. Do you mind if I get my things first?"
Frodo had no objection, and they accompanied Dorryk to a large, mossy rock that overlooked the part of the dell they had just passed through. The crushed grass below indicated that this was the point where Merry and Pippin had found and tackled him. On a flat ledge some ten feet above the forest floor sat a large brass sounding horn, and an odd-looking iron-work lantern of obvious dwarf-make with a number of irregularly shaped shuttered apertures on all sides. One of these was open to emit a long, thin horizontal bar of light through orange-tinted glass; when Dorryk climbed up to shut this, the wall of 'fire' vanished.
"We're about half a mile from the camp," he said as he picked up the lantern and horn and handed one, then the other, down to the hobbits waiting below. "You'll want your ponies."
As they went back to the place where the ponies had been tied, Dorryk produced a tin whistle from his coat pocket and, lifting it to his lips, gave a sharp whistle. In answer, the white pony, wearing no saddle or bridle, came trotting up, expressed an eager interest in the other ponies and tugged at their knotted reins to try to free them.
"It's no use in tying our Moondancer up," Dorryk explained as he put a hand on the pony's mane; the animal bent one foreleg and knelt gracefully in a gesture like a bow to allow the hobbit to climb up onto its bare back. "He goes wherever he wants, opens gate-latches and unties knots quick as a wink. Come on." With a nudge of his heels in the pony's ribs, he was off at a trot; the others climbed onto their own ponies and followed.
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