“Well! Poor Pedrillito—what of him? Has anything happened to him?”
“Yes, your excellency, a terrible mischance I fear to tell it you.”
“Tell it, sirrah, and at once! Out with it, whatever it is!”
“Alas, Pedrillo is gone!”
“Gone—whither?”
“Down the river.”
“What river?”
“The Pecos.”
“Gone down the Pecos? On what errand?” inquired the colonel, in surprise.
“On no errand, your excellency.”