Character guide

Unknown Narrator

major

Also known as myself, mine, I.

He is the voice of the range's quietest exile, a man whose days are measured by sheep and whose nights are haunted by distance. His tension is between the dream of a leased homestead and the maddening sameness of the herd, between a rifle kept for nothing and a mind that invents danger. He matters because his longing and near-locoed humor anchor the collection's early vision of solitude, labor, and the thin line between patience and breakdown.

High Chin Bob

supporting

Also known as Bob, Chin Bob, High Chin, old Bob

Bob is the kind of cowboy other riders measure themselves against and roll their eyes at, a figure of comic swagger and genuine grit. His flaw is his mouth, which runs ahead of his deeds, but his desire to be legendary keeps him in the middle of every campfire tale. He matters because his boasting gives the collection its humor and its skeptical view of cowboy heroics, a counterweight to the quieter laments around him.

Charles Badger Clark

supporting

Also known as Charley, The Cowboy, Charles Badger Clark Jr., Charles B. Clark

Clark appears as both author and persona, a man who could swing a singin' pen and still smell the sheep on his clothes. His distinctive tension is between the literary East and the working West, between pretty wrongs and greasy gray reality. He matters because his poems, like The Sheep-Herder and A Cowboy at the Carnival, give the collection its most authentic voice and its most durable characters.

Lasca

supporting

Lasca is the lost sweetheart of cowboy verse, a figure whose brief presence casts a long shadow over the speaker's later life. Her tension is the one between love and the trail, between a woman who waits and a man who rides away. She matters because her story gives the collection its emotional depth, a reminder that the cowboy's freedom is often paid for in grief.

Susie

supporting

Also known as hers

Susie is the recurring sweetheart of cowboy love poems, a working woman who ropes and ties the hearts of sober men and woozy alike. Her tension is between the hash she superintends and the homestead plans she figures out on Sunday rides. She matters because she represents the domestic dream that pulls against the trail, the promise of a future that keeps a rider mending his clothes and salting his wages.

John A. Lomax

minor

Also known as John, The John

Folklorist and compiler, referenced as a figure in the collection.

Broncho Bill

supporting

Also known as Bill

Bill is the every-cowboy of the collection, appearing in multiple poems as a familiar figure of the range. His tension is the ordinary one of a man caught between the freedom of the saddle and the pull of town, between work and whiskey. He matters because his recurring presence gives the collection its sense of community, a reminder that the cowboy life is lived not alone but among a cast of familiar, flawed, and enduring men.

Stranger

minor

Also known as your, yer

An unnamed outsider addressed in several cowboy poems.

Marta

supporting

Marta belongs to the shadow-world of the old Mackenzie Trail, where ghostly hooves and faint frontier songs carry the memory of lives once lived along the border hills. Her love story is tragic and half-told, a presence felt more in echoes than in scenes, which makes her both haunting and human. She matters because she gives the trail its emotional undertow — the reminder that the range was never only cattle and sky, but also tenderness, loss, and the people the songs leave behind.

Juan

minor

A Mexican vaquero or lover in border poems.

Texas Tom

minor

Also known as Tom

A cowboy character in humorous poems.

Boastful Bill

supporting

Also known as The Legend of Boastful Bill, Bill

Boastful Bill rides through campfire yarns as the cowboy who took a raging dream in tow and never turned it loose, a figure the other hands both mock and secretly admire. His flaw is that he cannot stop performing — every deed becomes a song, every song a claim to greatness. He matters because he embodies the range's own appetite for legend, showing how cowboys turned hard, dusty lives into stories worth repeating.

Jack Dempsey

minor

Also known as Dempsey

A famous boxer referenced in a cowboy poem.

Tom Stevens

minor

Also known as Tom

A cowboy character in various poems.

Snagtooth Sal

minor

Also known as Sal, Charles B. Clark

A rough frontier woman in a comic poem.

Belle McClure

minor

Also known as Belle

A woman mentioned in cowboy love poems.

James Fitz James

minor

Also known as Jim, the James Fitz James

A character in a narrative poem, possibly a bandit.

Jim Kershaw

minor

Also known as Jim

A cowboy mentioned in a poem about a horse race.

James Barton Adams

minor

Also known as Jim

A poet whose work is included in the collection.

Old Shorty

minor

Also known as Shorty

An old cowboy character in several poems.

Billy Leamont

minor

Also known as Bill

A cowboy character in a poem.

Windy Billy

minor

Also known as Windy, Windy Bill, Bill

A boastful cowboy character.

Whiskey Bill

minor

Also known as Comes Whiskey Bill, Poor Whiskey Bill, Bill

A drunken cowboy in a fragmentary poem.

Marster

minor

Also known as the Marster

A dialect term for master used in a poem.

Larry Chittenden

minor

Also known as Larry

A poet whose work appears in the collection.

Mary

minor

Also known as Moll

A woman's name used in cowboy love poems.

Pocock

minor

A character in a humorous cowboy poem.

Jack Lorell

minor

A cowboy character in a poem.

Comrade

minor

Also known as your

A term of address used in a cowboy poem.

Uncle Ed

minor

Also known as Ed

An older character in a cowboy poem.

Henry Herbert Knibbs

minor

A poet whose work is included in the collection.

Poker Bill

minor

Also known as Bill

A cowboy character in a poem.

Berton Braley

minor

A poet whose work appears in the collection.

Z Bar Dick

minor

Also known as Dick

A cowboy character in a poem.

Denver Jim

minor

Also known as James, Jim

A cowboy character in a poem about a vigilante.

Mackenzie

minor

A historical figure referenced in a poem about a trail.

Laban

minor

A biblical name used in a cowboy poem.

Ting

minor

A Chinese cook character in a cowboy poem.

John D. Rockefeller

minor

Also known as shud

A historical figure mentioned in a poem.

Cinches

minor

A character in a cowboy poem, possibly a horse.

Pete

minor

A cowboy character in a poem.

Pepita

minor

A Mexican girl in a border poem.

Baird Boyd

minor

A character in a cowboy poem.

Val

minor

Also known as Old Val

An old cowboy character.

Mr. Clark

minor

A formal reference to the author within the text.

Tenderfoot

minor

Also known as The Disappointed Tenderfoot

A greenhorn character in a poem.

Old Jacob

minor

An old man character in a poem.