- Gil Favor: There's one nice thing you can say about driving a herd up the Sedalia trail, if you're pressed to it, it don't make much difference if you're starting out from Texas at the one end or approaching Missouri at the other. The beeves stay beeves, the drovers stay human, and trouble is always saddling up a fresh horse preparing to ride with you. But what you can't be sure of, is the direction it's coming from, the face it's gonna be wearing, the name it'll be travelling under. What you can be sure of is that it knows your name. Mine's Gil Favor, trail boss.
- Jim Quince: [He is singing Red River Valley] Then sit down by my side, Little Darling. Do not hasten to bid me adieu.
- [Joe Scarlet hums along]
- Jim Quince: But remember the Red River Valley and the cowboy-
- [He hears the bugle]
- Judge Brady: You're a very young man, Mr Yates. Is Mr Favor any older?
- Rowdy Yates: Yeah, he's older.
- Judge Brady: Good. An older head is always a cooler head. You may convey my respects to Mr Favor. You may also inform him as to what happened here. I shall to hear from him very soon.
- Rowdy Yates: Well, I'll tell him what you said, but don't expect to hear from him. He ain't that much older.
- Judge Brady: Lock, stock, and barrel, if I may use a cliche.
- Rowdy Yates: [Rowdy is unshaven with at least 3 days' growth] I don't care what you use. I got to get back to the herd.
- Mary Donahoe: He's told you you're an officer, a gentleman, and you've got the documents to prove it. Trouble is, I married a man, not his documents. It's only when you try to be something that you're not, that you upset me.
- Judge Brady: A soldier's wife must be brave. Sometimes I think almost braver than the soldier himself.
- Judge Brady: He's telling me what he thinks to be the truth or what may have been the truth at one time. That time has passed.
- Gil Favor: Do the Cherokees know this?
- Jim Quince: Hey, Joe, have a look at them steers. They don't have to get up at night.
- Joe Scarlet: Nope.
- Jim Quince: They don't have to eat Wishbone's cooking.
- Joe Scarlet: Nope. I'm hungry just the same.
- Jim Quince: Find them good food, good water, easy going. What makes us think we got such a good deal?
- Joe Scarlet: Sedalia. Them steers and us both going there. But we're the only ones coming back.
- Jim Quince: But you consider where they're going and where we're going. For us, it's San Antone and another herd. Another six months on the trail. For them steers they're going East, Chicago, St Louis, big cities. The restaurants with bright, shiny lights ablazing, and pretty music, beautiful women just sitting around. Champagne being poured by the buckets. That's where them steers are going.
- Joe Scarlet: But they ain't gonna be sitting at the table, they gonna be on the table, on plates.
- Jim Quince: [singing while on night hawk] We will miss your bright eyes and your sweet smile. They say you are taking the sunshine that will brighten your path for a while. Say Joe.
- [Sleepy Joe is asleep in the saddle]
- Joe Scarlet: Huh?
- Jim Quince: Turn 'round and ride back the other way now.
- Joe Scarlet: What's the only way we're going?
- Jim Quince: Nothing.
- Joe Scarlet: Then why do we have to turn around and go back?
- Jim Quince: Well, Indians... nighthawkers on the other side of the herd, I guess.
- Joe Scarlet: Sounds reasonable.
- [There's no logic in the middle of the night]
- Mushy: [Mushy is sitting in the river doing his dishes, hears the bugler, and sprints back to camp] Mr Wishbone!
- Wishbone: What you trying to do? Wake everybody?
- Mushy: I heard a bugle, Mr Wishbone.
- Wishbone: You heard a what? You heard a bugle?
- Mushy: I heard a bugle.
- Wishbone: Have you been in my medical supplies again?
- Mushy: No, I ain't been sick, Mr Wishbone.
- Wishbone: All right then. Get back down there and bring up those pots and pans.
- Mushy: I ain't going down there. I heard that bugle.
- Wishbone: We must be at least 100 miles away from the nearest fort. Now even if there was a cavalry somewhere around here, why would they be blowing a bugle like that in the middle of the night?
- Mushy: I don't know. They did.
- Wishbone: Mushy, I'm gonna talk to you like your father.
- Mushy: My father never talked to me.
- Wishbone: I can see why.
- [Wish is exasperated as usual]
- Wishbone: Well, I's talk to you like your mother.
- Mushy: A bearded mother?
- Wishbone: Now you listen to me. My advice to you is to always think twice before you speak. Well, at least think once before you speak.
- Mushy: Yessir.
- Wishbone: On the other hand, maybe it would be better if you didn't speak at all.
- Mushy: Yessir. But I can't go around being like a mutt!
- Wishbone: Why can't you? You're a mutt if I ever saw one.
- Mushy: Mutts can't talk.
- Wishbone: A mutt? You mean a mute.
- Mushy: Yes, that's what I said. A mutt.
- Wishbone: All right. Neither a mutt nor a mute can go around saying that he hears a bugle out in the middle of nowhere without somebody thinking there's something wrong with him. In your case they might be right.
- Mushy: I heard a bugler though.
- Wishbone: All right, you heard a bugle. Now you go back there and bring back that stuff.
- Mushy: You come with me.
- Wishbone: All right, I'll get the stuff. You go to sleep.
- [At the river Wish is muttering away]
- Wishbone: You try and help a jasper out. What do you get for it. Nothin'. Just keeps on telling yer he hears bugles. No good to interfere. Some of us blessed with good sense and others just hear bugles! Don't do any good to interfere. Just! Jumping crawfish! That's a bugle!