its name is Rainier, and Tacoma insists the city's
title is the mountain's as well. Call it what you will to-day,
yesterday, in the talk of the Indian fishers of Whulge, it was known as
Tacoma, a word generically applied to snow mountains.

No truly great mountain in America is as readily accessible and as
widely enjoyed as Tacoma-Rainier. To Seattle and Tacoma it is an
ever-present companion, and all the Puget Sound country basks in its
shadow. A most excellent automobile road winds through its forests up to
the snow fields, the only highway on this continent which actually
reaches a living glacier. Railroads go close to the mountain, and a
delightful hotel and several camps supply every inducement and comfort
for luxurious stays in close proximity to the final peak. From these
places as headquarters one may make countless excursions round about the
mountain, over magnificently beautiful trails, seeing its glaciers, its
forests, its flowers, and its surpassing views, and there are always
guides ready to lead the way to the top, an ascent which offers all the
thrills and most of the experiences of the most arduous mountaineering
in the Alps. In short, there is an almost limitless field of recreation
round about Tacoma-Rainier, and it is but for you to choose the mode of
your enjoyment.

Seeing this "Mountain that was God," and climbing it, are matters of
almost normal routine to the residents of the Puget Sound country and
the visitors to its sister cities. It is the accepted thing to do--and
one supremely worth while--but to add another account of an ascent of
Tacoma-Rainier, or detailed description of its wonders, to the many
already in print, would be indeed carrying coals to Newcastle.

So, recommending you to the several excellent books on the subject,
instead of essaying further description of the mountain to-day I'll
venture to repeat what appeals to me as the best of the many Indian
legends relating to it. The wording of the story is that of Theodore
Winthrop, in his book _The Canoe and Saddle_, from which in a previous
chapter I borrowed the delightful legend of the Dalles.

[Illustration: The "God Mountain" of Puget Sound

Copyright 1910 by L. G. Linkletter]

The story, says Winthrop, was told to him by Hamitchou at Nisqually,
presumably about 1860, and here is his interpretation:

"Avarice, O Boston Tyee," quoth Hamitchou, studying me with dusky
eyes, "is a mighty passion. Now, be it known u