History connects the naming of Kiowa creek with Robideaux, in that the same raiders from the souih who burned the trading post were the following morning completely wiped out on the creek.

The regular hunting ground of the Kiowas is south of the Arkansas, and east of the Purgatory. As a tribe they are more often mentioned as Comanches, by early writers. They wen- very warlike and treacherous, ami often engaged in raids upon emigrants along the

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

Santa Fe trail. On occasions, bands would reach the Platte, but not very frequently were they as far as the North river.

About 1852 one of the predatory raids to the north was made, and a band of some fifty warriors and their families reached Indian Springs in the hills south of Gonneville or Pumpkin creek.

Here they loitered for a short time, and then decided to move to the valley of the Flat Water. They followed the well known trail obliquely across the Gonneville valley, and up into the "V" north of Wildcat mountain. Emerging from the hills through Cedar canyon, they struck west and destroyed the abandoned Robideaux post.

Crossing the hills, they stopped at a spring leading down to the northwest. Here they rested after their pillaging of the old post.

At this time a dashing young Sioux warrior, with a small band of young braves, came down from the north, thinking perhaps to meet some of their ancient enemies, the Arapahoes. His spies discovering the camp of Kiowas, and being somewhat indiscriminate as to who should be his victims, he attacked the Kiowa camp.