[Illustration: A RECEPTION IN THE WHITE HOUSE.] After the decisive battle fought at Bladensburg, Maryland, in the war of 1812, the British advanced upon Washington. President Madison was in the rear of the American lines, and seeing that the city was lost, he sent word to his wife to escape. That noble lady's first thought was to save Stuart's celebrated oil portrait of George Washington, which hung in the White House. Hastening to the room, she had it taken from the wall and carried to the retreating ranks of the American army, thus saving for the republic one of its greatest art treasures. It was during this invasion that the White House obtained its name from the coat of white paint applied to its surface after the burning of its main building. Numberless suggestions have been made to enlarge the official residence, but the public objected. Its present occupation, doubtless, will end with the close of the century and its hundred years of life, since the needs and demands of the President's family and the public have outgrown its proportions and capacity. But it will forever be associated with all that has made our nation important. Tragedy has gone hand in hand with festivity within its walls more than once. The great men of the country have sat in its rooms in grimmest council, when the fate of the nation hung in the balance of a decision that sent a messenger at daybreak flying from the White House gates. Twice its doors have opened to receive a murdered President, and again the joy bells have rung to honor a bride, and a child born in its "purple," yet who lived to toil for her daily bread far from friends and home. It cannot be parted with or even altered carelessly, yet unquestionably its fate is sealed. With the close of the century its story of a hundred years will be told. THE PAINTED DESERT. A STORY OF NORTHERN ARIZONA. BY KIRK MUNROE, AUTHOR OF "RICK DALE," "THE FUR-SEAL'S TOOTH," "SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES," "THE MATE SERIES," ETC. CHAPTER III. LOST ON THE PAINTED DESERT. Filled with a determination not to become rattled by the perils surrounding him, our young hunter at once proceeded to select a camping-place and make his scanty preparations for passing the long hours of darkness. With neither wood, water, nor grass to be seen in any direction, and all places looking alike uninviting, the task was not difficult. Dismounting, and leading his horse to a little recessed gully at the foot of a steep bluff, which would at least afford a shelter from the wind, Todd unsaddled, fastened the free end of the picket-rope to a bowlder, cleared away the rocky fragments from a small space of level sand, and unrolled his blankets.