Sound of Running Feet is the narrator of the novel. She is a 14-year-old Nez Perce girl and the daughter of Chief Joseph, the chief of the Nez Perce. She grew up in Wallowa, her ancestral homeland, but white soldiers attack her tribe, forcing her to flee. Sound of Running Feet is a powerful woman; she refuses to surrender to the whites and wants to fight with the men, though her male tribal members resist her. She is going to marry Swan Necklace, a painter who turns into a fierce warrior after doing battle with the Red Coats. Sound of Running Feet is grief-stricken by the losses of her tribe, but particularly by the death of Swan Necklace. By the end of the novel, she no longer hungers for conflict but instead violence sickens her. She makes the choice not to perpetuate that violence and lets her fiancé’s murderer go free. 

Old Joseph is the former chief of the Nez Perce and Sound of Running Feet’s grandfather. He is dead when the novel begins, but his legacy lives on in the rifle he gives to Sound of Running Feet to protect her tribe.