Chapters 1 & 2 Summary

Bless the Beasts and Children by Glendon Swarthout is a young adult novel centering around a group of outcast boys at a summer camp and their quest to save a herd of buffalo from being slaughtered in mid-1960s Arizona. Intermingling action with flashbacks that deal with the boys' histories, the story draws the reader into the comradeship of the group as they move towards tragedy at the quest's end.

Chapter one begins with a dream. The dreamer is named Cotton. He dreams that he is an animal being herded by men in trucks with guns. Just before a bullet takes Cotton's life, he stares into the face of his shooter. It is his mother. Cotton awakes in a sweat. He is the oldest of the boys in his group at the age of fifteen. Wide awake now, Cotton checks his comrades. Cotton...