- Charlie Wooster: You know, Flint, on second thoughts, I'm not very important to that meeting. I think I'll just stick around here for a while.
- Flint McCullough: Charlie, what do you want to do? Frighten this lovely little thing to death?
- Charlie Wooster: Oh, that's the trouble with women nowadays, they frighten too easy.
- Mr. Murray: What do you think of her? Isn't she a beauty?
- Christopher Hale: Yes, she is. Nice hobby, collecting old guns. I had a revolutionary war musket once myself.
- Mr. Murray: Well, it's no hobby. I sold my Winchester to get this.
- Christopher Hale: YOU WHAT?
- Mr. Murray: Well, like Captain Brady says, you need range, got to get out there and pop 'em off at a thousand yards.
- Flint McCullough: [Reading from a newspaper article that's hot off the press] I could go on but it all sounds the same, even this part about being hurt so bad that he can't continue as your Chief Scout. You're pretty easy on him, weren't you?
- Christopher Hale: Ah, he's not a bad old boy.
- Flint McCullough: He caused you a lot of trouble.
- Christopher Hale: Well, the way I see it, he's not necessarily the kind of man a hero really is. But what people think he is, brave, noble, honest, strong. They're the qualities that people admire the most. Folks will always have their heroes, Flint. Dan Brady made a pretty good one for thirty years.
- John Grey Cloud: You listen to me, Captain Dan. Eighty million Americans look up to you. You're the type of person they teach their children to respect and admire. Now this man Hale is trying to make you look like a fool. You owe something to this country and it owes something to you.
- Captain Dan Brady: But to use my friendship with the Secretary of War is downright unmanly. I couldn't do a thing like that.
- John Grey Cloud: Well, I've talked to the reporters into holding up their stories for a while. But sooner or later they'll have to file them. And they'll tell the whole country that a small-time wagonmaster refused Rocky Mountain Dan as a Chief Scout. They'll laugh at you, Captain Dan.
- Captain Dan Brady: I remember a time I kept 300 Kiowas off my neck, burning a hundred sticks of greasewood, looked like a whole army was there.
- Captain Dan Brady: I'm afraid you've wasted your money. No range. No weight in the pulley. I used to shoot more than a thousand yards. This here thing is hardly good for two hundred.
- Mr. Murray: But Mr Hale says.
- Captain Dan Brady: Mr Hale's business is running a wagon train, Mr Murray. You take my word for it. Get yourself a good old sharp single shot. Best gun ever made.
- Captain Dan Brady: I will tell you, I will be Chief Scout on Christopher Hale's train because it is the only train this year which closest approximate the trails West which I favoured myself thirty years ago and more... Where's Mr Hale, John?
- John Grey Cloud: He doesn't seem to be here.
- Captain Dan Brady: I hope he got my wire... Which of you gentlemen of the Press has been chosen to go West with us?
- Flint McCullough: Is he here yet?
- Christopher Hale: Who?
- Flint McCullough: He isn't here yet.
- Bill Hawks: Who're you talking about, Flint?
- Flint McCullough: I think it's more fun if I just wait and let you find out for yourself.
- [Captain Brady, John Grey Cloud, the band, the press and entourage arrive with loud fanfare]
- Loretta: It must be terrible out there, the Indians and all.
- Flint McCullough: [the smiling Flint is at his charming, flirtatious best] Oh, it's not so bad, really. 'Cos you never know if you're ever coming back. That's when you miss all the important things you've left behind. Things, like you.
- Loretta: Really.
- Flint McCullough: That's why every minute you're in civilisation, you try to live. You try to hold onto every fleeting glance of beauty.
- Loretta: You poor dear. If only I could make it easier for you.
- Flint McCullough: Well, maybe I can think of something.
- Christopher Hale: Captain Brady, I think there's been some misunderstanding, I already have a Chief Scout, Mr Flint McCullough.
- Captain Dan Brady: Of course, of course. Mr McCullough and I will get on just fine.
- Christopher Hale: You don't understand, Captain. I'm perfectly satisfied with Mr McCullough's work.
- Townsman: You mean you're turning down the chance to sign on Rocky Mountain Dan as your Chief Scout, Mr Hale?
- John Grey Cloud: He doesn't mean anything of the kind. Frankly, Mr Hale, I don't understand your attitude.
- Christopher Hale: Well, it's very easy to understand, I admire Captain Brady very much, but this happens to be MY wagon train.
- Christopher Hale: Somehow, somewhere, I've got to get hold of $5,000. It might as well be 5 million.
- John Grey Cloud: Captain Dan's home is in the saddle, Mr Hale, just like it always used to be.
- Christopher Hale: Well, suit yourself. You're liable to find out the ground's got a little hard in thirty years, Dan.
- Captain Dan Brady: But one thing I never forgot, one John never let me forget. I'm a Westerner, Chris. Same as you and him. There's a lot of things I miss. I miss the smell of sage brush, and the buffalo, millions of them 'til you can't see the dirt under their feet.
- Christopher Hale: You won't find the buffalo like that any more, Dan.
- Captain Dan Brady: That's the trouble, Chris. I've got to find the old things before they're all gone. I want to feel the earth beneath my feet when I get near the mountains. I want to hear the crack of leather and the roll of wagon wheels. Guess I'm homesick, Chris. I'm tired of being what I am. I want to be what I used to be.
- Christopher Hale: This is my train, Mr McCullough. I give the orders. I do the hiring and firing.
- Flint McCullough: That's right, Mr Hale. He stays?
- Christopher Hale: He stays.
- Flint McCullough: I quit.
- John Grey Cloud: MCCULLOUGH!
- Flint McCullough: Yeah, that's my name.
- John Grey Cloud: I've a message for you from Brady.
- Flint McCullough: Well, don't keep it a secret.
- John Grey Cloud: He doesn't want any more backchat. From now on, when he talks, you shut up and listen. Keep out of his way and do what he tells you to do. He doesn't like smart young know-it-alls.
- Flint McCullough: You wouldn't have any words you'd like to add of your own, would you? I mean, you're not quite as old as he is.
- John Grey Cloud: You heard what he said. Stay in line or get out.
- Captain Dan Brady: Mr McCullough, I've been meaning to talk to you, boy. I hope there're no hard feelings?
- Flint McCullough: None at all. I'm sure you'll do a remarkable job.
- Captain Dan Brady: I hope I do it as well as you did, Sir. Now, Flint, you've made quite a reputation for yourself on this job. I'd like to make you a little proposition.
- Flint McCullough: So?
- Captain Dan Brady: Yes, I've got two or three shows still running around the East, in Europe and as far as I'm concerned, I'd close them like that. But I like the people who are working for me, kinda figure I owe something to them.
- John Grey Cloud: And to your audiences, Captain Dan.
- Captain Dan Brady: Now, since I, ah, kinda, ah, beat you out for this job, I, ah, let me turn it into something big for you? How would you like to take over one of my companies. I'd give you top billing.
- Flint McCullough: Sounds big.
- Captain Dan Brady: Big ain't the word for it. There's thousands in it, a fortune, fame, roar of the crowd, travel.
- Flint McCullough: Oh, about your offer, thanks very much, but, ah, I've got sensitive ears. I don't think that my ears would take very well to the roar of the crowd.
- Flint McCullough: Well, how's it going? Is there any hope?
- Christopher Hale: Aw, there's always hope. Well, Flint, I guess the best thing to do is to come right out and tell yer.
- Flint McCullough: Tell me what?
- Christopher Hale: I've taken on Dan Brady as Chief Scout.
- Flint McCullough: Why'd you do that?
- Christopher Hale: Let's just say, for selfish reasons. Good publicity.
- Flint McCullough: You can believe that if you wanna, but I don't have to.
- Christopher Hale: I said I'm sorry.
- Flint McCullough: You may be a lot sorrier before you get to California. Even if Brady is everything he says he is, and I'm not sure of that, a lot can happen in 30 years.
- Christopher Hale: I know. I want you to stay on, Flint. I wouldn't want to head West without you riding out ahead of us.
- Flint McCullough: That's what you're paying him for, isn't it?
- Christopher Hale: Stay with us. I'm gonna need you.
- John Grey Cloud: Listen, Hale. Captain Dan is known all over this world.
- Christopher Hale: Well, all over the world and West of the Missouri are two pretty thoroughly different places. Dan, leave the wagon train to me and my people. That's our business.
- Captain Dan Brady: I didn't mean to be meddling.
- John Grey Cloud: You weren't. If anyone's meddling, Hale is.
- Christopher Hale: Mr Grey Cloud, I don't know what your function is with Captain Brady, but you don't have any at all with me.
- Captain Dan Brady: I guess I wasn't so bad once. I'm no Jim Bridger. A pretty good shot. Good scout. But I never really did anything until I killed Red Cloud.