The Border and the Buffalo: An Untold Story of the Southwest Plains / The Bloody Border of Missouri and Kansas. The Story of the Slaughter of the Buffalo. Westward among the Big Game and Wild Tribes. A Story of Mountain and Plain

by John R. Cook

I said, "Mahlon, you get in here, then, near the bow."

Mr. Phelps then asked me to hold the lantern up high, as he believed he could make the other bank at a place he wished to land better than if they took the lantern with them. The river here was about 200 feet wide, and very deep, with a strong current.

The boat had not gotten more than ten feet from the shore, when Oden shifted his position suddenly, which tilted the boat violently and threw Mr. Phelps into the river. I called to Mahlon King to throw me the bow-line, but he caught up the line and leaped towards shore, the bank at that place being a gradual slope towards shore. He made a few strokes, and found footing.

Phelps, being in the stern of the boat when tilted out, was farther out in the stream; for he had backed out to swing the bow around; and when pitched out he was in deep and pretty swift water. There were some long overhanging limbs just below him, which, on account of the swollen condition of the stream, nearly reached the water. Mr. Phelps was calling for help.

I dropped the lantern, jerked both six-shooters out of their scabbards, dropped them on the ground, ran down the stream about thirty feet, plunged in, and swam out under the branches, just in time to catch Mr. Phelps by his coat-sleeve with my right hand, at the same time holding on to a sweeping limb with my left hand. Soon we were ashore, paddle and all, for he had hung onto it while struggling in the water.

Here we were, three of us, wet as drowned rats, and Tom Oden, a cold-blooded murderer, dry as a powder-horn.

I had not the slightest suspicion at the time that Oden tilted the boat intentionally, hoping to drown Mr. Phelps in order to get rid of a damaging witness against the Odens. Replacing my pistols in their holsters, I got in the boat in front of Mr. Phelps and said, "Now, Rogers, get in and we will try it again, and be very careful and sit still."

Whether he thought, by my getting in the boat instead of King, that my suspicions were aroused and that I might shoot him in another attempt to tilt the boat, I am unable to say.

We went on to Oden's cabin, after crossing, and before a large open fireplace dried our clothing, and got a few cat-naps before daylight. All the time and throughout the entire day until we started back, Tom Oden was in an adjoining room with Mrs. Oden.