News of the World

The Captain leaves Johanna with the task of the stove and goes off to speak to the man who takes care of the Masonic Lodge, so he can rent it for his reading. He bemoans the fact that with Johanna he is unable to stay in a hotel and eat in a restaurant because he does not trust that she can behave herself under such circumstances. He then hangs up his advertisements for the reading around town.

The Captain notices a man sitting at the window of a store whom he knows: Simon Boudlin, a fiddler. He walks into the store and chats with Simon. The Captain tells him about renting the lodge, and Simon tells him about how he just finished playing for the Dancing School because the guitarist they’d previously hired to play busted all his strings tuning his guitar too high. The Captain tells Simon about Johanna. Simon had heard of someone else named Kiowa Dutch who'd also been abducted by the Kiowa when he was younger and how odd he was—how he was never the same as before. The Captain then asks him if he and his female friend, Doris, wouldn’t mind watching over Johanna while he reads because he is worried she will run away if left unsupervised.