# Boastful Bill — Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp character guide

> Boastful Bill in Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp by John A. Lomax.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** The Legend of Boastful Bill, Bill

**First appearance:** 0008-the-legend-of-boastful-bill

## Snapshot

A legendary braggart cowboy whose glory songs and tall tales grow larger with every retelling, half hero, half self-made myth of the open range.

## Who they are

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.

## In the story

### [Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/chapters/songs-of-the-cattle-trail-and-cow-camp)

Boastful Bill is the subject of a humorous poem about a cowboy who claims to ride a wild bronco but is thrown off.

### [The Legend of Boastful Bill](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/chapters/the-legend-of-boastful-bill)

The central figure of the poem, a supremely confident cowboy who attempts to ride a wild horse and is launched into the sky, still boasting.

### [When Bob Got Throwed](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/chapters/when-bob-got-throwed)

Referenced as 'Bob' in the poem, the friend who gets thrown and later retaliates.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters/boastful_bill
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/songs_of_the_cattle_trail_and_cow_camp_se/characters