“Suppose you just tell me why you help us, before you pick those things up,” Miss Howard ordered.

El Niño’s appealing smile returned and then his round features began to display what you might call theatrical disgust. “Oh, is not for me, to work for the señor-no more! He beat me-beat his wife-beat everybody, with fists like-like-” Looking around quickly, the aborigine grabbed a big stone from the side of the road, then held it up to Miss Howard.

“Like rocks,” she said.

“Yes, is true, like rocks!” El Niño answered. “Give me one suit of clothes-” He held his arms up, displaying the rolled-up cuffs of his jacket, and then pointed down at his trousers, what were cut off roughly at the ankles. “Too big! Is not for me. First, one time, I work for father-old señor-”

“For Señor Linares’s father?” Miss Howard asked.

“Yes, lady. He different man. Good man. This son-not the same. Beat everybody with fists, think he great man-because his mama love him too much!”

I burst out laughing at that, and got myself a sharp elbow from Miss Howard for it; but she, too, was having trouble containing her amusement at the little fellow. “And so what do you want from us?” she asked, lowering the Colt.

El Niño shrugged. “I to work for you, I think. Yes, I think so. I watch you-see you try to find baby Ana. Is good. The señor, he not want you to find her. But she a baby! I think you find her, because you good people. I work for you, I think-sure.”

Miss Howard and I exchanged shocked looks. What were we supposed to say? The idea seemed so strange as to be out of the question, but neither of us particularly wanted to tell him that. Not with that arsenal lying in the road, and knowing that he’d been keeping track of every move we’d made for weeks now. There was also the fact that we’d both identified something likable in the little fellow-likable and decent. So maybe it wasn’t so peculiar a notion after all.

“But,” Miss Howard said, “what do you mean, ‘work’ for us? What would you do?”

The aborigine was about to answer, but first he eyed his possessions on the road. “I can pick up?” he said to Miss Howard carefully.

She nodded, looking at him like he was a naughty kid. “Slowly,”she said.

He followed the instruction, and tucked all the pieces of his arsenal into big pockets what’d been sewn special inside his jacket. Then he started to approach us, swaggering like a man twice his size. “Many things I do!” he declared. “Protect you from enemies-kill them, or make them sleep! Cook, too!” He pointed at the landscape around us. “Snake, dog-sometimes rat, if you very hungry!” Both Miss Howard and I let moans of disgust out through the smiles that had settled in on our faces. “See things-find things out! If you have El Niño to work for you, you have eyes everywhere!” He passed an arm out across the horizon again.

“And what,” Miss Howard asked, “would be your salary for all this?”

“My sa-?” the aborigine noised, puzzled.

“What would we have to pay you?”

“Oh, pay, yes!” he answered, filling his chest with air proudly. “El Niño Manilaman-Manilamen work only for pay! The señor pay me with nothing-with shit!” I let out another loud laugh, and Miss Howard didn’t even try to stop me; in fact, she joined in, and so did El Niño, who was pleased with our reaction. “With shit he pay me!” he went on. “Bad clothes-food after others have eaten it-and the señora make me to sleep outside, even in winter-time! You can give me good food-bed to sleep in, yes? House has many beds. And you-” He pointed at me and then he did the little dance around his neck with one hand again, causing my grin to shrink suddenly.

“Whoa, now, don’t start that!” I said. “I don’t want any trouble with you-”

“No, no!” he answered. “Not trouble! Clothes! Your clothes-three nights past from here-you do not like your clothes, yes?”

Counting the nights on my fingers and trying to get some idea of what he was talking about, I remembered the trip to Saratoga; and then, in a rush, I recalled my encounter with what I’d taken for a kid in the gardens of the Casino. “So that was you!”I said. “You saw me in the monkey suit!”

“Monkey suit?” El Niño asked, puzzled. “Not for monkeys-fine clothes for fine man-fit me! You do not like them,” he said, putting the finger to his neck again. Then I got it: he’d seen me straining at the white tie, and figured out that I hated wearing the thing.

“Stevie,” Miss Howard said, “what does he mean?”

“He saw me at the Casino-saw that I don’t like wearing them clothes. I think he wants them.” I spoke louder to our new friend: “You want those clothes, is that the deal?”

“Fine clothes for fine man!” he answered, slapping his chest. “You give them to El Niño, he work for you!”

I shook my head. “But you can’t wear them all the time-”

“Why not?” Miss Howard asked, turning to me. “Frankly, Stevie, I think this fellow can do just about as he pleases.”

I gave that a second’s thought, then nodded. “Yeah, you’ve got a point there, all right. But what the hell’s the Doctor going to say?”

“When we tell him that we’ve brought one of our main opponents over to our side?” Miss Howard countered with a smile. “What do you think he’s going to say?”

I kept nodding, and then thought about our host in Ballston Spa. “And Mr. Picton?” I didn’t even have to wait for the words; Miss Howard just gave me a look, and I smiled. “Yeah, you’re right. He’ll laugh himself sick-and this guy’ll give him a run for his money in the gab department, that’s a fact. Well, then…”

Miss Howard turned to the aborigine. “All right,” she said, indicating the bed of the buckboard. “Climb aboard-and tell us what we should call you.”

“Call me El Niño!” he said, slapping his chest again. Then his face grew more cautious. “I work for you?” he asked, as if he didn’t quite believe it.

“You work for us,” Miss Howard answered. “Now get in.”

“No, no! It is not right so-El Niño can walk, while the lady rides.”

Miss Howard sighed. “No, El Niño, that is not right. If you work for us, you’re one of us. And that means you ride with us.”

Looking about ready to bust, the aborigine did a little piece of a dance in the roadway, then sprang onto the bed of the buckboard with the speed of a jungle cat. He stood up on the bed behind us, grinning from ear to ear. “With El Niño to work for you,” he declared, “you find baby Ana! Sure!”

Not quite believing or understanding what we’d gotten ourselves into, I gave the Morgan the reins and we headed for home.

We got the full story of El Niño’s life on that trip, one what we relayed to the others once we’d reached Mr. Picton’s house. It seemed that as a boy in the jungles of the Philippines’ Luzon Island, the aborigine had been out hunting with the men of his tribe one day when they’d been set upon by a party of Spaniards. The older Aëtas had been killed for sport; the younger ones had been taken to Manila and sold into a lifetime of bondage. El Niño had escaped his first master after several years, then spent his early manhood haunting the waterfront and becoming a roving mercenary. He’d done time as a pirate, fought in small wars all over the South China Sea, and finally found his way back to Manila, where he’d been arrested for petty thievery. Brought before a Spanish magistrate, he’d been sentenced to life at hard labor-which was when the older Señor Linares, a diplomatic official, had stepped in and given him a chance to work off his “debt” to the Spanish Empire as a household servant. I couldn’t help, when I heard all this, but think of my own experiences with Dr. Kreizler; and this common background quickly formed a bond between me and our new partner.

He was a character, there was no denying that much: everybody in Mr. Picton’s house found his strange mixture of manly posturing and gentle, almost childlike kindness to be both amusing and touching. When he met Cyrus in particular, he behaved in a way what was very affecting yet still kind of comical. He bowed in a deep, respectful manner, and was amazed when the bigger man-who he seemed to think was some kind of oracle-actually offered him his hand. The fact that “Mr. Mont-rose” (as El Niño would always pronounce it) lived among whites as a trusted equal-wearing the same clothes they did, eating the same food, and sleeping in the same quality of accommodations-seemed to the aborigine to mean that he had attained a high level of secret knowledge; and El Niño set out to model his behavior on that of my big, quiet friend. Such, of course, was no easy task, for such a chatty, active little fellow.