Alan Sisto

So that's where that southerner is hiding, he thought.

That definitely brings us to the half-orc thing, because Aragorn says something exactly to that point.

I thought of him too, said Aragorn.

We had many of these half-orcs to deal with at Helm's Deep.

It seems plain now that that southerner was a spy of Saruman's, but whether he was working with the black riders or for Saruman alone, I do not know.

It is difficult with these evil folk to know when they are in league and when they are cheating one another.

I like that.

And a very real-world applicable observation, too.

In version B, it is noted that the Black Captain did not know whether the ring was still in the Shire.

That he had to find out.

The Shire was too large for a violent onslaught such as he had made on the Stoors.

He must use as much stealth and as little terror as he could, and yet also guard the eastern borders.

Therefore, he sent some of the riders into the Shire with orders to disperse while traversing it.

And of these, Camul was to find Hobbiton, where Baggins lived, according to Saruman's papers.

But the Black Captain established a camp at Andrath, where the Greenway passed in a defile between the Barrow Downs and the South Downs.

And from there, some others were sent to watch and patrol the eastern borders, while he himself visited the Barrow Downs.

In notes on the movements of the Black Riders at that time, it is said that the Black Captain stayed there for some days,

and the barrow-whites were roused, and all things of evil spirit, hostile to elves and men, were on the watch with malice in the old forest and on the barrow-downs.

That's right.

So in this version B, the Witch King doesn't know if the ring is still in the Shire, so he has to do some recon to find out.