But Uncle Nick did not go to California. Almost before he had had time to hear from his cousin Steve, he got his chance to dig for gold—and strange as it may appear, it was in Kansas! My uncle was among the first at the sensational Cherry c reek gold diggings—the present site of Denver—in 1858, advertised at the time in the East as the gold-fields of western Kansas. For want of a better known landmark, probably, the scene of that gold strike was inaccurately laid in the shadow of Pike’s Peak. Though visible on clear days, through the sun-drenched haze that lies always, like a pall, over the mountain fastness, Pike’s Peak is a good hundred miles south of Denver. But that gold find was truly in Kansas. At that time Kansas territory extended west to the backbone of the Rocky mountains. The city of Denver—first called Auraria—scene of the Cherry creek placers, was named after the territorial Governor of Kansas—James W. Denver. Uncle Nick located a claim at the Cherry creek diggings and sent home to my aunt Hulda a small bottle of gold-dust, saying in a letter to her that she was “no longer a poor man’s wife!” That was, as my aunt afterwards said, a “sorry” thing to do—like giving a reprieve to a condemned man, and then revoking it. My uncle brought home no gold. He must have neglected his claim for the more hazardous business of hunting mountain lions. That ferocious beast, if you don’t know, is the big cat with four names. In the East and South he is the panther. In the Rockies he is the mountain lion. In Arizona and on the Pacific slope he is the cougar. Somewhere he is the puma. And everywhere he is the killer! No Government bounty was paid on cougars then, as there is now; but the pelts were much in demand for rugs. Hunters went after the lions for the same reason that early-day trappers sought the beaver. I recall that the lion rug in my uncle’s home, measuring eight feet from tip to tip, with stuffed head and artificial eyes—a trophy of his Rocky mountain hunts, killed at the risk of his own life, was a scary thing. The great beast was shot in the nick of time — in mid-air, after that two hundred pounds of destruction had made the spring for my uncle from an overhanging limb of a great pine.