John Easter, a butcher living in Lawrence, Kansas, heard of gold found two days sleep from Pikes Peak from Fall Leaf in 1857. Fall Leaf was a member of the Delaware tribe living on a reservation near Lawrence, Kansas who met with Easter to negotiate the sale of a steer. Fall Leaf was a guide in 1857 for Major John Sedgwick's cavalry unit to locate and attack the Cheyenne and Arapaho, in a series of attacks of retribution that stemmed from the killing of a Cheyenne warrior. That journey led the men along the Arkansas River, Fountain Creek and South Platte River. During that trip Fall Leaf found gold in the Pikes Peak area and showed a sample to Easter.