A Cycle of the West · Chapter
III: The Crawl explained
Hugh Glass, crawling and severely injured, hides from a passing band of Ree (Arikara) warriors led by the chieftain Elk Tongue.
What happens
Hugh Glass, crawling and severely injured, hides from a passing band of Ree (Arikara) warriors led by the chieftain Elk Tongue. He observes their desperate migration westward, driven by Sioux attacks and hunger. After they pass, he struggles with thirst and a moment of temptation to rob a feeble old squaw, but hesitates, haunted by a memory. He then continues his painful journey southward, fueled by vengeance against Jamie, and finds meager sustenance from breadroot.
Themes in this chapter
Nature and the Wilderness
The chapter vividly depicts the harsh, indifferent landscape—the coulee, the dwindling creek, the heat waves—that Hugh must traverse, emphasizing the wilderness as both obstacle and antagonist.
Fate and Inevitability
Hugh's journey is framed by fate: 'thrice three seasons yet should swell the past, / So was it writ, ere Fate’s keen harriers / Should run Hugh Glass to earth.' His struggle against destiny is a central motif.
Greed and Materialism
Hugh's temptation to rob the old squaw for her 'priceless spoil' of a tent, flint, steel, kettle, and knife reflects the theme of material desperation and moral conflict.
Characters to notice
- Hugh Glass
The protagonist, crawling and hiding from a Ree war party, driven by vengeance and struggling with thirst and moral conflict.
- Elk Tongue
Fighting chieftain of the Ree, leading his starving people westward, described as a gnarled old man with a flinty face.
- Little Jim
Referred to as 'Jamie' in Hugh's vengeful thoughts; the object of Hugh's desire for revenge.
Key passages
“And when the crawler stood erect again— O Friend-Betrayer at the Big Horn’s mouth, Beware of someone riding from the South To do the deed that he had lived to do!”
When Hugh finally stands upright again, he warns the betrayer at the Big Horn River to watch for a rider from the south coming to exact revenge.
Foreshadows Hugh's eventual revenge against those who abandoned him.
“What did the dying with the means of life, That thus the fit-to-live should suffer lack?”
Why should the dying possess the tools of survival while the living go without?
Reflects Hugh's internal moral struggle over whether to rob the old squaw.
“Fool, fool! to struggle when he might have crept So short a space, yet farther than the flight Of swiftest dreaming through the longest night, Into the quiet house of no false friend.”
He was a fool to keep struggling when he could have crawled a short distance into death, a peaceful place without betrayal.
Highlights Hugh's despair and the temptation to give up.