- Tom Reese: Well, what makes you think you'd like to go trail herding?
- Frank Harris: Well, ah, all my life I've been dreaming about going into the cattle business. Getting out on the trail and... and I hate Chicago. I'd like to live in the open. You know what I mean?
- Tom Reese: Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. You mean lying out there under the stars listening to the boys singing around the campfire. And your faithful old horse standing there grazing at the grass by your side. You do much riding?
- Frank Harris: Me? Well, I bet I could ride all day and all night.
- Tom Reese: Oh, is that a fact? You know, I bet you like horses.
- Frank Harris: Yes, sir, I sure do.
- Tom Reese: Yeah, I thought so. Well, you're an idiot! You're a dreaming idiot, and that's the worst kind. You know what the trail is really like? Dust storms all day, cloudbursts all night. A man has got to be a fool to want that kind of life.
- Wagon Driver: It beats me how women can go for you cowboys.
- Charlie, Trailhand: Oh, yeah. Women like the smell of a horse on a man. That makes them giggle.
- Wagon Driver: Well, the smell of a horse on me never did me no good. Just makes them get up and move away.
- Charlie, Trailhand: Maybe you're associating with the wrong horses.
- Tom Reese: If you had anything inside you worth saving, I'd beat you until you couldn't stand up. But it wouldn't do any good because you'll never learn. You haven't gotten tougher... you've gotten miserable!
- Tom Reese: How's the arm, Charlie?
- Charlie, Trailhand: All right, boss. It's my drinking arm, not my loving arm.
- Charlie, Trailhand: I've been dreaming every night about them Mexican gals for the last week. I wouldn't take $400 for what I dreamed last night.
- Peggy, Trailhand-Cook: You've been talking in your sleep, too. I wish you would think of something else to dream about for a change.
- Charlie, Trailhand: I'll tell you what you do. You think of something better to dream about... I'll dream about it.
- Tom Reese: Anybody know the right words? Uh, something like this happens, people start asking how come it happened. I mean uh... was it his fault... was... was somebody else's fault? Well, that isn't for us to say. You see, we don't know all the answers. All we know is a man is dead and that's that. In the long run, I don't think it would have made any difference anyhow. I mean, if it hadn't been a snake that had got him, it would have been a steer, or a Comanche... his horse might have stumbled into a prairie dog hole some dark night. He was a good man with cattle and always did the best he knew how. I hope somebody can say the same over me.
- Senor Vidal, Maria's Father: I know Señor Harris, he writes poetry.
- Tom Reese: He does?
- Frank Harris: I used to.
- Tom Reese: And all that hogwash about horses! The loyalty of the horse! The intelligence of the horse! The intelligence? You know a horse has a brain just about the size of a walnut. They're mean, they're treacherous and they're stupid. There isn't a horse born that had enough sense to move away from a hot fire. No sensible man loves a horse. He tolerates the filthy animal only because riding is better than walking.
- Frank Harris: We rounded up most of the herd... that is, all we could find.
- Tom Reese: How many head did we lose?
- Frank Harris: Just over 200.
- Tom Reese: That's a lot of cows.
- Frank Harris: Yeah, it is. It's too bad. It's too bad for you.
- Tom Reese: What?
- Frank Harris: We found all my cows. It seems it was yours that ran off and got lost.
- Slim Barrett: Tell the boys the time you ate them Indians, huh? Come on!
- Joe Capper, Trailhand: Ah, I only ate but one injun in my whole life. An even then it was just a haunch.
- [a little later]
- Paul Curtis: Hey, old Joe would be rather fighting Indians all the time, wouldn't you, Joe? Look at him, boss. It makes him hungry just thinking about it.
- Joe Capper, Trailhand: Ah, cut it out, will you, Curtis? I was near starving to death. In fact, I didn't even know that injun. Anyway, I threw away everything except for one haunch.
- Paul Curtis: Which haunch did you keep, Joe?
- Joe Capper, Trailhand: Well, the left one, of course! The right one is the working haunch. They're always tough.
- Doc Bender, Trailhand: What about this fellow Reece?
- Paul Curtis: He's all right if you're all right.
- Doc Bender, Trailhand: When does he pay off? At the end of the run?
- Paul Curtis: You ask him for what's coming in the middle a river crossing, and he'll pay you off. He'll pay you off in dry bills.
- Tom Reese: You're getting old, Doc.
- Doc Bender, Trailhand: No, it ain't that. A man has to have something besides a gun and a saddle. You just can't make it all by yourself.