unction of North and South Tahoma Glaciers, viewed
from Indian Henry's. The main ice stream thus formed, seen in the
foreground, feeds Tahoma Fork of the Nisqually River. The Northern
part of North Tahoma Glacier, seen in the distance beyond the wedge of
rocks, feeds a tributary of the Puyallup.]

The mountain divinity, with his under-gods, figures in much of the
Siwash {p.032} folklore, and the "Land of Peace" is often heard of.
It is through such typical Indian legends as that of Miser, the greedy
hiaqua hunter, that we learn how large a place the great Mountain
filled in the thought of the aborigines.

[Illustration: Anemones, a familiar mountain flower.]

This myth also explains why no Red Man could ever be persuaded to an
ascent beyond the snow line. As to the Greek, so to the Indian the
great peaks were sacred. The flames of an eruption, the fall of an
avalanche, told of the wrath of the mountain god. The clouds that
wrapped the summit of Tacoma spelled mystery and peril. Even so shrewd
and intelligent a Siwash as Sluiskin, with all his keenness for
"Boston chikamin," the white man's money, refused to accompany Stevens
and Van Trump in the first ascent, in 1870; indeed, he gave them up as
doomed, and bewailed their certain fate when they defied the
Mountain's wrath and started for the summit in spite of his warnings.

[Illustration {p.033}: Copyright 1910, A. H. WAITE. North Tahoma
Glacier, flowing out of the huge cleft in the west side, between North
and South Peaks. A great rock wedge splits the glacier, turning part
of the ice stream northward into the Puyallup, while the other part,
on the right pours down to join South Tahoma Glacier. Note how the
promontory of rock in the foreground has been rounded and polished by
the ice. Compare this view with pages 32 and 37.]

[Illustration {p.034}: Snow Lake in Indian Henry's, surrounded by
Alpine firs, which grow close to the snow line. Elevation about 6,000
feet.]

The hero of the Hiaqua Myth is the Indian {p.035} Rip Van
Winkle.[2] He dwelt at the foot of Tacoma, and, like Irving's worthy,
he was a mighty hunter and fisherman. He knew the secret pools where
fish could always be found, and the dark places in the forest, where
the elk hid when snows were deepest. But for these things Miser cared
not. His lust was all for hiaqua, the Indian shell money.

[Footnote 2: This legend is well told in "Myths and
Legends of the Pacific North