# Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp — Character guide

> Key figures in Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp by John A. Lomax.

- [Unknown Narrator](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/unknown_narrator.md): 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 her
- [High Chin Bob](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/high_chin_bob.md): 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 k
- [Charles Badger Clark](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/charles_badger_clark.md): 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
- [Lasca](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/lasca.md): 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 ri
- [Susie](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/susie.md): 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
- [John A. Lomax](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/john_a_lomax.md): Folklorist and compiler, referenced as a figure in the collection.
- [Broncho Bill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/broncho_bill.md): 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 w
- [Stranger](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/stranger.md): An unnamed outsider addressed in several cowboy poems.
- [Marta](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/marta.md): 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 
- [Juan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/juan.md): A Mexican vaquero or lover in border poems.
- [Texas Tom](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/texas_tom.md): A cowboy character in humorous poems.
- [Boastful Bill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/boastful_bill.md): 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 — ever
- [Jack Dempsey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/jack_dempsey.md): A famous boxer referenced in a cowboy poem.
- [Tom Stevens](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/tom_stevens.md): A cowboy character in various poems.
- [Snagtooth Sal](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/snagtooth_sal.md): A rough frontier woman in a comic poem.
- [Belle McClure](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/belle_mcclure.md): A woman mentioned in cowboy love poems.
- [James Fitz James](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/james_fitz_james.md): A character in a narrative poem, possibly a bandit.
- [Jim Kershaw](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/jim_kershaw.md): A cowboy mentioned in a poem about a horse race.
- [James Barton Adams](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/james_barton_adams.md): A poet whose work is included in the collection.
- [Old Shorty](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/old_shorty.md): An old cowboy character in several poems.
- [Billy Leamont](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/billy_leamont.md): A cowboy character in a poem.
- [Windy Billy](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/windy_billy.md): A boastful cowboy character.
- [Whiskey Bill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/whiskey_bill.md): A drunken cowboy in a fragmentary poem.
- [Marster](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/marster.md): A dialect term for master used in a poem.
- [Larry Chittenden](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/larry_chittenden.md): A poet whose work appears in the collection.
- [Mary](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/mary.md): A woman's name used in cowboy love poems.
- [Pocock](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/pocock.md): A character in a humorous cowboy poem.
- [Jack Lorell](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/jack_lorell.md): A cowboy character in a poem.
- [Comrade](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/comrade.md): A term of address used in a cowboy poem.
- [Uncle Ed](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/uncle_ed.md): An older character in a cowboy poem.
- [Henry Herbert Knibbs](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/henry_herbert_knibbs.md): A poet whose work is included in the collection.
- [Poker Bill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/poker_bill.md): A cowboy character in a poem.
- [Berton Braley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/berton_braley.md): A poet whose work appears in the collection.
- [Z Bar Dick](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/z_bar_dick.md): A cowboy character in a poem.

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