her after the flowers that
blooms all over the desert spite of everything, heat, cold, an' rain an'
alkali dust--the cactus blooms right through it all. Even its own thorns
don't seem to fret it none. I called her plain Cactus till she was three,
and along came a sharp studyin' the flowers an' weeds out here, and he
'lowed that Cactus was a boy's name an' Cacta was for girls--called it a
_fee_minin tarnation, or somethin' like that, so we changed it. My second
daughter 'ain't got quite so much of a name. She's called Clematis. That
holds its own out here pretty well, 'long by the willows on the creek. Paw
'lowed he was terrible afraid that I'd name the youngest girl Sage-brush,
so he spoke to call her Lessie Viola, an' I giv' in. The boys is all plain
named, Ben, Jack, and Ned. Paw wouldn't hear of a fancy brand bein' run
onto 'em."

The temperature fell perceptibly as they climbed the heights, and the air
had the heady quality of wine. It was awesome, this entering into the
great company of the mountains. Presently Mary caught the glimmer of
something white against the dark background of the hills. It gleamed like
a snow-bank, though they were far below the snow-line on the mountain-side
they were climbing.

"Well, here be camp," announced Mrs. Yellett. What Mary had taken for a
bank of snow was a huge, canvas-covered wagon. Several dogs ran down to
greet the buckboard, barking a welcome. In the background was a shadowy
group, huge of stature, making its way down the mountain-path. "And here's
all the children come to meet teacher." Mrs. Yellett's tone was tenderly
maternal, as if it was something of a feat for the children to walk down
the mountain-path to meet their teacher. But Mary, straining her eyes to
catch a glimpse of her little pupils, could discover nothing but a group
of persons that seemed to be the sole survivors of some titanic race. Not
one among them but seemed to have reached the high-water mark of six feet.
Was it an optical illusion, a hallucination born of the wonderful
starlight? Or were they as huge as they seemed? The young men looked
giants, the girls as if they had wandered out of the first chapters of
Genesis. Their mother introduced them. They all had huge, warm, perspiring
hands, with grips like bears. Mary looked about for a house into which she
could escape to gather her scattered faculties, but the starlight, yellow
and luminous, revealed none. There was the huge covered wagon that she