[Kalimac]

littlemanpoet - when you say "Pippin knew about Gollum" do you mean knew of his existence in general, or knew that he had been previously captured? For the first, I imagine Bilbo would have told that Riddles In The Dark story (suitably edited, of course, rather like he did in his first telling of the story) to all of the younger hobbits several times, and of course Pippin would have been only eleven or so when Bilbo went away. For the second, don't forget that Sam was passing along information to Merry and Pippin for several months, and he did overhear that conversation between Gandalf and Frodo in "Shadow of the Past" which included a fairly complete description of Gollum's past and present activities. True, Merry says that Sam didn't pass on anything more after he was caught, but that could have just meant he didn't pass on any further conversations between Frodo and anyone else - obviously he let M&P know enough to realize that Frodo was in serious danger, why not tell them all the gossip about Gollum as well?