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Genre 

Coming-of-age novel; Western novel; animal rights novel; didactic novel

Narrator 

Anonymous

Point of view 

Third-person omniscient

Tone 

Alternately grandiose, reverent, humorous, tragic

Tense 

Past

Protagonist 

John Cotton

Major conflict 

A group of misfit campers sets out on a mission to rescue a herd of buffalo from their deaths in a brutal, state-sponsored shooting; the campers seek to define themselves as individuals and as men.

Rising action 

The boys witness the buffalo shooting at the preserve; the boys decide to escape from camp in an effort to rescue the buffalo

Climax 

The Bedwetters succeed in freeing the buffalo

Falling action 

Cotton's death and the Bedwetters' consequent mixed emotions of grief and joy

Foreshadowing 

Cotton pretends to vote to return home and abort the mission, testing the Bedwetters' sense of initiative and independence; Cotton appears as if he is "chewing on the idea of eternity"

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