The pair of broncos that Mrs. Yellett was driving humped their backs like cats as they climbed the steep mountain-road. With her, driving was an exact science. It was a treat to see her handle the ribbons. Mary asked some trifling question about the children and it elicited the information that one of the girls was named Cacta. “Yes,” she said, “I like new names for children, not old ones that is all frazzled out and folks has suffered an’ died to. It seems to start ’em fair, like playin’ cards with a new deck. Cacta’s my oldest daughter, and I named 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.