- The company of hobbits manages to make it into Bree and the Prancing Pony without catching sight of the riders, which is good because Bree, with all its big men, is scary enough.
- At Pony they find Gandalf has yet to arrive. So they eat and drink and talk about the Baggins, which is bad because that's the name the riders know.
- Frodo tries to intervene but slips and falls, releasing the ring. It lands directly on his finger. What are the chances?
- He enters a strange other realm of blurry darkness where the enormous eye of Sauron talks to him until he finally has the wits the pull the ring off (making himself visible in the real world).
- The man named Strider, who they noticed staring at them earlier, comes and takes Frodo into a room upstairs.
- He says that they have drawn too much attention to themselves and can no longer wait for Gandalf—apparently he knows quite a lot about why they're there.