Their story, divested of the crude manner in which it was interpreted
by the Mandan and put into intelligent English, was as follows:--
The boy belonged to the Pawnee Loups, whose tribe lived on the Wolf
Fork of the Platte. One day, in company with several of his young
comrades, he had gone down to the river to indulge in the luxury
of a swim, and while they were amusing themselves in the water,
a raiding band of the Tetons came suddenly upon them, making a
prisoner of him while the others managed to make their escape.
He was instantly snatched up, tied on a horse, and hurried away.
The animal he rode was led by one of the band, and goaded on by
another who followed immediately behind. They travelled night and day
until they reached a point entirely free from the possibility of being
followed, and then he was leisurely conveyed to the main village at
the Great Bend of the Missouri. As their prisoner happened to be the
son of a grand chief of the Pawnees, he was greatly prized as a
captive, and, on that account, was placed in the family of a principal
chief of the Tetons. He was only sixteen years old according to his
statement, but he was already fully five and a half feet high, and one
of the handsomest and best proportioned Indians that Captain Williams
had ever seen.

He said that his name was Do-ran-to, and that it is frequently the
lot of Indian captives, to some extent, to occupy the relation of
servants or slaves to their captors, and to be assigned to those
menial and domestic offices which are never performed by men among
the Indians, but constitute the employment of the women. To be
compelled to fill such a position in the village was very mortifying
to the Indian pride of Do-ran-to, the heir to a chieftainship in his
own tribe; but he became somewhat reconciled to it, as it threw him