Life at the ranch had gone along quietly for the boys during the two weeks after Mr. Temple’s departure, filled with riding, several short trips into the mountains and a visit to Santa Fe, second oldest city in America, to inspect the ruins of the Spanish occupation.
Then had come the expected invitation from Inspector Burton of the Secret Service to visit Washington, and with two weeks left of their vacation, all three set out for New York via the national capital.
Now, as they stood in front of the New Willard at Fourteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, just around the corner from the White House, they were filled with pleasurable excitement and some nervousness, too. For they were going to meet the President of the United States.
“Be at the office of the President’s Secretary at eleven o’clock,” had read the note from Inspector Burton, awaiting them at the hotel. He had written he would be unable by reason of business engagements to meet them at the hotel and conduct them to the White House, but that he would meet them there.
It was a hot August day. Not a cloud was in the sky, and the sun shone with an intensity that was almost unbearable. Heat waves danced on the asphalt, and there were few people moving about. Washington in mid-summer is at its deadest, for then the legislators and major government officials have fled to seashore or mountain, the city is depopulated, and those remaining stir abroad no more than necessary. In its ring of hills, drowsy, somnolent, the governing center of the nation takes a summer _siesta_ and waits for the coming of crisper autumn when the wheels once more will begin to revolve.
For the President to be at the White House was unusual, but urgent business having to do with a crisis in a little-known corner of Latin America had demanded his presence. The boys had read of his return the day previous in their morning paper.
Being a little ahead of the appointed time they walked leisurely along Pennsylvania Avenue under the dusty trees, with the broad White House lawn showing green and pleasant behind the high iron fence, and with the White House handsome and dignified through the trees. Following directions, they did not turn in at the wide main gateway, but at Fifteenth Street turned and retraced their steps to the small thoroughfare between the State, Army and Navy Building and the left wing of the White House, where the executive offices are located.