But for centuries beyond number the great mountain of Puget Sound has been as it is to-day, the mountain beautiful, dominating all the Sound country. In Seattle 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: