Back on the trail, the two lovers encounter a lost dwarf who's become detached from his circus, a thing Catherine has never heard of much less seen. Clayton hoists him up behind Catherine on her horse and they ride into town, presumably having arrived at Liberty where Catherine was to have taken the train. Clayton is a famous gunfighter, and the sheriff when apprised of Clayton's arrival, immediately leaves town on a supposed errand to Juarez. Clayton goes into the railroad office and returns the money he had been paid to kill Matt, reporting that Matt is dead "but I didn't kill him." Enter a grizzled old dime-store-novelist-of-the-west (Peckinpah), who offers Catherine money to tell him her story which he promises to write up and publish, making her rich by feeding the rabid interest in the largely fictional exploits of gunfighters back east. In his pitch he points our how short-lived are gunfighters and suggests she would be wise to feather her nest which he asserts will soon be missing a mate. Clayton and Catherine, however, reject his blandishments and send him on his way.