Perrin de lac in his book, 1802. puts on his map "Ancient Village of the Paducas," on the upper Niobrara near Rawhide Buttes. Robert Harvey, when doing some surveying in Sioux county, about forty years ago, came upon "old ruins" northwest of Agate. An early map of Nebraska indicates "ancient ruins" across the river and some distance north of the present site of Bridgeport. These were likely the former establishments of "Paducas," and date back to about the beginning of the last century.

Major Long, in 1820, says that during the life of Chief Blackbird, about 1780 or 1790, the Paducas came and attacked an Omaha village on the Missouri river near the mouth of the Niobrara.

Tradition has it among the Indians that the Cheyennes came and drove the Comanches from the Rawhide Butte region, and that later the Sioux came and drove out the Cheyennes. Major Long also stated that in 1820 the Cheyennes, "on the Cheyenne river" secured goods from the British -traders through the Sioux and they would bring them to the Platte where at "distant periods" evidently meaning long intervals, a sort of an Indian trading fair is held, usually on "Grand Camp creek," by the Cheyennes. Arapahoes, Kiowas, and Comanches. Tin's may have been as far up the river as tin- present Grand Encampment, but I doubt if any of ihe creeks had their present names so early as that date. The Arapahoes carried on this sort of trade before the Cheyennes took it up, but the Arapahoes seem to have been prevented by the Sioux from securing goods from the Missouri, and the Cheyennes took up the