- New chapter; new conversation.
- We eavesdrop on a palaver between Dom Paulo and a messenger. The abbot gets up-to-date on politics and current affairs.
- Dom Paulo is informed that Hannegan is going to "defend" the frontier from Mad Bear and the State of Chihuahua.
- The messenger further notes that Hannegan plans to have Mad Bear's clan deal with Laredo while the Laredans drive hundreds of diseased cattle into the tribe's herd for some old-fashioned chemical warfare.
- In other words, Hannegan wants his enemies to kill each other off. Sly guy.
- The messenger advises Dom Paulo to secure the abbey, especially considering those new hazards: gunpowder and grapeshot.
- Not long afterward, tribesmen in wolf skins appear outside the abbey's gate, causing a bit of an uproar.
- Then Taddeo makes his appearance and the misunderstanding is resolved.
- Dom Paulo notices Taddeo's "icy eyes" that study "him as one might study a lifeless curio" (17.56). We're a little freaked out. But he extends to him all the courtesies of the abbey anyway.