Sure enough it was Cupid. He had been trotting gently down one of the side streets, his wagon laden with full milk cans and with sundry bundles. A dog passing across the square at the end of the street attracted his attention, and he started off at full gallop. The cans rolled out of the cart and spurted their milky contents on the ground. A bag of eggs smashed disastrously as it struck the pavement. Tins—of corned beef, lentils, sardines—bounced on the floor of the wagon until they jounced over the side into the road. On, on ran Cupid, his harness holding strongly and the front wheels banging his hind paws at every jump. The uproar that he created drew the attention of the dog which had caused all the commotion by his mere presence on the plaza. Casting a startled glance at Cupid, he clapped his tail between his legs and fled—fled with great bounds, his ears flapping in a breeze of his own creation. Unencumbered as he was he had the advantage of Cupid, who was unable to rid himself of the equipment that marked him as man's slave. Seeing his quarry disappear in the distance the bull dog came to a standstill just as Roger seized the strap that dangled from his harness.
"Yours, I believe," he laughed as he handed the leash to the young man who came running up.
"Mine. Thank you. My name is Watkins and I'd be glad to know you better. I've noticed you passing the house every day."
"Thank you. My name is Morton," and the two young fellows shook hands over Cupid's head, while he sat down between the shafts and let slip a careless tongue from out his heated mouth.
CHAPTER X
A CHAUTAUQUA SUNDAY
ON the last Sunday in July the sun rose on a Chautauqua made serious by the portentous event of war actually declared in Europe. The Mortons felt a vital interest in it. With their father and uncle in the Navy and Army war in theory was a thing not new to them. Both Lieutenant and Captain Morton had served in the Spanish-American War, but Roger was a baby at the time and the other children had been born later. The nearest approach to active service that the children had actually known about was the present situation in Vera Cruz. They had been thrilled when Lieutenant Morton had been ordered there in the spring and Captain Morton had followed later with General Funston's army of occupation.
But the United States troops were not in Mexico to make war but to prevent it, while the impending trouble in Europe was so filled with possibilities that it promised already to be the greatest struggle that the world ever had known.