Some of the smartest of them stripped off their clothes and started to swim the stream, but landed on the same side they started from.  Captain Doty studied the matter a little and then set out himself, being a good swimmer, and by a little shrewd management and swimming up stream when the current was strongest, soon got across to where he could touch bottom and shouted to the others to do the same.  Soon all the swimmers were across.

They could now see that there were two trains on that side and that the farther one had already begun to move and was about a mile in advance of the nearest one, Doty said something must be done, and although they only were clothed in undershirts they approached the nearest camp and were handed some overalls for temporary use.  The men in this camp on hearing about the missing oxen said the fellows in the forward train went over and got them, for, as they said there were no wagons in sight and they must be strays.  He said the forward train was from Tennessee, and that they had some occasion to doubt their honesty and had refused to travel with them any further.  They said they were all old Missourians, and did not want other people’s property and if the boys found their cattle with the Tenneseans, and wanted any help to get them back again to call on them, and putting in some good strong swear words for emphasis.

The boys, barefooted and with only overalls and shirts, started after the moving train which they called to a halt when overtaken.  The coarse grass was pretty hard to hurry through, clothed as they were.  The train men were pretty gruff and wanted to know what was wanted.  Capt.  Doty very emphatically told them he could see some of his oxen in their train, and others in the herd, and he proposed to have them all back again.  The Jayhawker boys were unarmed but were in a fighting mood and determined to have the stock at all hazards, and if not peaceably, war might commence.  The boys saw that the two trains were of about equal strength, and if worse came to worst they could go back and get their guns and men and come over in full force after their property, and they were assured the Missourians would help them and a combination of forces would give them a majority and they could not be beaten by the Tennessee crowd.  There was a good deal of talk, but finally when Doty demanded that their cattle be unyoked and the others separated from the herd, they yielded and gave them all their stock, some seventy head.

The Missourians had come up and heard the talk, and some of them went back and helped drive the cattle to the river, and deal out some double shotted thunder against the biggest scamps they had come across.  It was quite a job to get the cattle across the river.  They would go in a little way and then circle round and round like a circus, making no progress.  They finally put a rope on one of them and a man led him as far as he could, which was more than half way,