Submitted Photo Children at Cyndi Morlang’s daycare in Minot, are just as happy with River’s return as the Morlangs are. From left to right are Elsie Schweitzer, November Reinoehl and Arbor Pederson.

On Aug. 21, the Morlang family of Minot discovered their beloved cat, River, had gone missing. When River still hadn’t returned on Tuesday morning, Cyndi and Shane Morlang started hanging flyers and going door-to-door around their neighborhood, asking if anybody had caught a glimpse of the absent cat.

“On Wednesday morning I got a phone call from a neighbor saying they think my cat road-tripped down to Hazen in the back of their boat,” Cyndi Morlang said. The neighbors saw a cat jump out of their boat once they reached their destination, the Lewis and Clark RV Park, nearly 90 miles away from the Morlang’s home. After receiving a picture of a flyer from their house sitter, the Morlang’s neighbors realized the cat that leapt out of their boat earlier in the day was River.

Once the Morlangs received the lead that their milk carton kitty was farther from home than they expected, the search was on in Hazen. Cyndi and Shane drove to the campground River was last sighted at and hung more flyers.

“We had no luck. By Friday, I decided to join the local Hazen Facebook pages and I bombarded every single post with a picture and a description of River,” Cyndi Morlang said. The following day they drove to Hazen again, once more going door-to-door, knocking on around 20 doors to spread the bizarre story of their missing cat.

“On Sunday night at 9:45 a nice gentleman, Kevin, called and said he had our cat. He told me if we hadn’t been down there the day before and showed him pictures, he would have never thought anything about a strange cat walking up onto his deck,” Cyndi Morlang said.

Kevin brought River inside his home, where the kitty dined like a king on tuna after being in the wilderness for nearly a week. The Morlangs hoofed it to Hazen one last time for a late-night rescue mission to bring River back home.

“I have to give so much credit to the town of Hazen. I had so many people message me saying they were out looking for my cat. A couple of young kids even said that they were going to be there after school chores – to look for River,” Cyndi Morlang said.

She went on to say River is still trying to jailbreak, and she fears her cat may not catch the same stroke of luck twice if he goes missing again. But for now, he’s home safe in the arms of Morlang’s daycare children.