# A Cycle of the West — Character guide

> Key figures in A Cycle of the West by John G. Neihardt.

- [Hugh Glass](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/hugh_glass.md): Hugh Glass is the gray veteran of the trapper camps, a man whose years sit on him like snow until a memory of Jamie's wind-blown hair and merry eyes rekindles a longing to live. Robbed of gun, flint, and blanket by the b
- [Mike Fink](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/mike_fink.md): Mike Fink is the hard-drinking, hard-fighting boatman whose long friendship with Frank Talbeau is poisoned when a woman comes between them and he forces a choice no loyal man can make. His sullen silence around the ember
- [Frank Talbeau](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/frank_talbeau.md): Frank Talbeau is the peacemaker of the keelboat crew, a man who loves both Mike Fink and Carpenter and finds himself commanded to choose between them as between food and drink. His blizzard-night appeal to old brawls at 
- [Little Jim](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/little_jim.md): Little Jim, called Jamie or Petit Jacques, is the beardless boy whose changeful moods and thunder-squall rages mark him as much child as man in the rough company of trappers. When Hugh Glass carries him down from the lea
- [Red Cloud](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/red_cloud.md): Red Cloud stands among the Ogalala as a keeper of the old days, recalling lodge smoke rising straight into sunlight and valleys running full with fading cows and thundering bulls. Around him the Sioux gather news of Nez 
- [Crazy Horse](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/crazy_horse.md): Crazy Horse is the last great Sioux, a giant shrunken to the size of any sergeant as he dismounts before the silent double row of soldiers and the glint of steel. His people straggle in with twice a thousand beggars, pon
- [Will Carpenter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/will_carpenter.md): Will Carpenter rides among the seasoned hands of the fur trade, one of the old breed whose knowledge of the wild is matched only by his loyalty to the men beside him. His steadiness throws into relief the raw nerves and 
- [Jules Le Bon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/jules_le_bon.md): Le Bon belongs to the polyglot brotherhood of trappers who paddle, portage, and barter their way up the Missouri, their French patois and easy laughter a counterpoint to the grim business of survival. He embodies the old
- [George Armstrong Custer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/custer.md): Custer leads the Seventh out of Fort Lincoln with bands playing and women weeping, a spectacle of martial glory that even his own Ree scouts read as a farewell to the dead. His confidence is both his genius and his blind
- [Major Andrew Henry](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/major_henry.md): Major Henry is the organizing will behind the fur venture, the leader whose men ride westward with the day and whose camp is the fixed point in a landscape of treachery. When Hugh Glass, broken and abandoned, finds a squ
- [Spotted Tail](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/spotted_tail.md): Spotted Tail arrives at the Soldier's Town with a thousand Brulés, a leader whose willingness to treat with the whites places him at odds with the bull-lunged Ogalalas who howl down every concession. His pragmatism is no
- [Colonel Maynadier](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/colonel_maynadier.md): A U.S. Army officer involved in negotiations with the Sioux.
- [Sitting Bull](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/sitting_bull.md): Sitting Bull is the spiritual and strategic center of the Lakota resistance, the leader whose presence at the Greasy Grass turns a gathering of bands into a wall against the cavalry. The poem reaches him obliquely, throu
- [Roman Nose](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/roman_nose.md): A Cheyenne warrior chief known for his bravery in battle.
- [Hohay](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/hohay.md): A Lakota warrior and ally of Crazy Horse.
- [Gray Fox](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/gray_fox.md): A Cheyenne warrior who fights at Beecher's Island.
- [William H. Ashley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/ashley.md): Ashley is the organizing will behind the expedition — the man whose capital, judgment, and name hold a scattered company of trappers and traders together against distance and weather. The passages show him broken by inju
- [Captain William J. Fetterman](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/fetterman.md): A U.S. Army officer killed with his command in a Sioux ambush.
- [Dull Knife](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/dull_knife.md): A Cheyenne chief who leads his people in a desperate escape.
- [Major Marcus Reno](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/reno.md): A U.S. cavalry officer who survived the Little Bighorn battle.
- [Gall](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/gall.md): A Hunkpapa Lakota war chief who fights at the Little Bighorn.
- [Black Kettle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/black_kettle.md): A Cheyenne chief who sought peace but was killed at Washita.
- [General George Crook](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/crook.md): A U.S. Army general who campaigned against the Sioux and Cheyenne.
- [Colonel Henry B. Carrington](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/carrington.md): The U.S. Army commander who built Fort Phil Kearney.
- [Brigadier-General George A. Forsyth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/brigadier_general_forsyth.md): A U.S. Army officer who commanded scouts at Beecher's Island.
- [Captain James Powell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/captain_powell.md): A U.S. Army officer who defended the Wagon Box corral.
- [Hump](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/hump.md): A Cheyenne warrior who fought at Beecher's Island.
- [Little Raven](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters/little_raven.md): A Southern Arapaho chief who sought peace.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_cycle_of_the_west_se/characters