San Francisco Examiner, 27 February 1974

Boys' fantasy turns to shock

MILWAUKEE -- Those two boys who ran away from home to, as they put it, "join an Indian tribe" returned home last night with different ideas about life on a reservation.

Stowaways aboard a Seattle-bound passenger train, they were discovered by a conductor as the train passed through Montana when they tried to build a teepee in the dome car.

So Douglas Morgan, 10, and his brother William, 9, of Milwaukee were put off in Harve, Mont.

Taken in tow by David Lanning, a youth counselor, they found out about Indians.

"I had a young fellow in my office, an Indian boy off the reservation," Lanning said. "They were quite shocked that he was dressed like everybody else."

They also found out that people on reservations live in houses, not teepees.

Last night Douglas and William were flown to Chicago, where their parents were waiting.

Said their mother: "They may have been trying to get to Wounded Knee, but when they get home they'll have wounded butts."

[NOTE BY C.F.: I have no idea why the boys' surname is given as Plonka in the picture caption but Morgan in the text, but that's definitely what it says in the news clipping in my possession.]