- Jeremy Dow: When do you want me to leave?
- Hotel Clerk Kelly: Any time in the next five minutes.
- Jeremy Dow: [Jeff laughs and fishes in his ragged trouser pocket] Here, it's about all I got left. Here, you take it. You ought to be able to get $10 for it.
- Hotel Clerk Kelly: What's this 'H' stand for here?
- Jeremy Dow: That's a school back East.
- Flint McCullough: Does he get like that often?
- Hotel Clerk Kelly: Every time he gets some money. Come on, Jeff, wake up. You got company.
- Flint McCullough: Never mind. Never mind. Let him sleep it off.
- Hotel Clerk Kelly: He's a real good worker when he's sober.
- Flint McCullough: Yeah? I sure could use an extra hand but I gotta do better than that.
- Flint McCullough: I've been talking to the Cavalry C.O. and he tells me that, ah, you were hired on as a round up to Arapaho. If we have a brush with them you'll be expected to do your share of fighting.
- Jeremy Dow: All right by me.
- Flint McCullough: Bruce's mother is a kinda, well, she's a kinda particular woman. Before I spring you on her, we'd better get rid of some of those whiskers and find you some new clothes. But you're hired.
- Jubal Ash: Well, you expect me to outfit you?
- Jeremy Dow: Well, you sort of give me an advance.
- Jubal Ash: Huh? I wouldn't advance you a Reb nickel.
- Bruce Millikan: [the boy is sitting outside the Rapahoe Freed and Grain playing 'Shenandoah' on his mouth organ. Jeff/Jeremy joins in] Pretty good.
- Jeremy Dow: Not bad yourself.
- Bruce Millikan: Can I see her?
- Jeremy Dow: Sure.
- Bruce Millikan: Where'd you get her?
- Jeremy Dow: Germany.
- Bruce Millikan: Golly. Sure enough. Made in Germany. Says it right here.
- Jeremy Dow: There's something I ought to tell you.
- Bruce Millikan: What?
- Jeremy Dow: Well, this box you're sitting on. Now, officially, that's mine. I usually sit there this time of day in the afternoon.
- Bruce Millikan: Every day?
- Jeremy Dow: Yeah, when the sun is shining. 'Cause I don't want to be a hog about it.
- Bruce Millikan: You, ah, you wouldn't know a thing about driving a prairie schooner, I expect.
- Jeremy Dow: Well, I don't know if I can answer that the way you ask it without sounding like a brag.
- Bruce Millikan: What do you mean?
- Jeremy Dow: Well, I just happen to be a professional that's all.
- Bruce Millikan: Wagon driver?
- Jeremy Dow: Freighter, wagon driver, whatever you want to call it. I used to have my own outfit up in Utah before the Mormon trouble. Three, four skinning mules jerk lined, didn't make much difference what it was, I used to drive 'em.
- Bruce Millikan: Yeah? Cuss pretty bad?
- Hester Millikan: You could have come home.
- Jeremy Dow: I couldn't face you. I suppose there was a little enough chance but there was none by morning.
- Jeremy Dow: You mean your name is not Millikan?
- Bruce Millikan: No, it's Dow.
- Bruce Millikan: That's right.
- Jeremy Dow: What's your middle name?
- Bruce Millikan: Jeremy, after my Pa. How come you know the Hedley Pledge?
- Jeremy Dow: [He chokes back emotion] I was there once.
- Bruce Millikan: Want to play it with me?
- Jeremy Dow: Oh, no. Not now... BRUCE! Play 'Shenandoah' or something, will ya.
- Hester Millikan: You couldn't humiliate ME? So you let me grieve alone and bear your child alone, love you and miss you. And marry a man that I didn't love, clean your memory from my brain to make room for him. And learn to love him by rote like learning the multiplication table, stand beside him at the dedication ceremony while the President orated on the heroism of Jeremy Dow. With the cold hand choking in my throat, knowing that all the time that the learning was wasted.
- Flint McCullough: [They find the hide hunters' wrecked wagon down off the track] Let's get back to camp.
- Bill Hawks: It's a bit late for that.
- Flint McCullough: Huh?
- Bill Hawks: What'll we do?
- Flint McCullough: Talk.
- Indian Brave: Where your friend go?
- Flint McCullough: What friend?
- Indian Brave: With paint pony. Man with paint pony, fur cap, skin coat. Where he go?
- Flint McCullough: I don't know. Not my friend.
- Indian Brave: You lie.
- Flint McCullough: This isn't my wagon. I'm not a hunter. I don't pass on Indian land.
- Flint McCullough: How hard did you look?
- Bill Hawks: No sense going down there, Flint. A lot of fresh moccasin tracks.
- Flint McCullough: [Flint quotes the Indian brave] His friend. On paint horse with skin cap.
- Jeremy Dow: It's a she.
- Bruce Millikan: He's got horns.
- Jeremy Dow: Well, both buck and doe antelope have got horns. This one's a lady.
- Bruce Millikan: Sure pretty, ain't she.
- Jeremy Dow: Yeah.
- Bruce Millikan: Seems a dirty trick fooling her with the flag. Kinda wish I hadn't done it.
- Jeremy Dow: Well, that's how I felt the first time I killed a deer. I guess most hunters do.
- Bruce Millikan: Does that make it right?
- Jeremy Dow: That's a big question.
- Jeremy Dow: You see, I've had time to think. A man doesn't have to do the dishonourable thing if he has time to think.
- Jeremy Dow: Will you give me the jacket?
- Flint McCullough: The boy means that much to you?
- Jeremy Dow: Yeah.
- Flint McCullough: [Shenandoah plays while Flint fetches the jacket and a bottle of liquor from the wagon] You'd better take that too. I wish I had more.
- Flint McCullough: ...But riding here is like listening to a sermon. I can almost hear the words: For whosoever will lose his life shall find it. But what is a man profited shall gain the whole world and lose his soul. What shall a man give in exchange for his soul.
- Bruce Millikan: [At the campsite, Bruce plays 'Shenandoah' as Jeff/Jeremy shaves] how was thta?
- Jeremy Dow: Well, there's room for improvement.
- Bruce Millikan: It'll sound a lot better on a genuine German mouth organ, of course.
- Jeremy Dow: Yeah. I expect it would.
- Bruce Millikan: You ever thought of selling her?
- Jeremy Dow: No.
- Bruce Millikan: Just thought I'd ask. I got $2.60 saved up. If you're interested, that is.
- Jeremy Dow: No, not interested.
- Bruce Millikan: You know, you're kinda hard fella to deal with.
- [Bruce starts to play the Hedley Pledge]
- Jeremy Dow: It would have been like climbing up on a mountain and shouting out to all the world: Here I am, look at me, Jeremy Dow. I'm alive. I didn't run onto the flames. It was a mistake. I panicked. The hysterical schoolboy thought he saw mme but he was wrong. I was someone else. I was out there in the dark, tembling in my boots, scared oou of my wits and listening to those boys in there screaming for help.
- Clete Millikan: Well, I suppose a man can take a drink now and then and still amount to something. But when he goes staying drunk for two weeks running, it's bound to put a splotch on his character.
- Hester Millikan: Two weeks?
- Clete Millikan: And then some. It's funny, nice looking fella too if he cleaned up a little. Hard to believe he's just a common drunk.
- Hester Millikan: Who says he's a common drunk?
- Clete Millikan: Well, now, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he ain't a common drunk. Maybe he's uncommon. Maybe he's a world champion drunk.
- Hester Millikan: [Jeff/Jeremy approaches] Clete!
- Clete Millikan: But he's a ripsnorter of a drunk.
- Jeremy Dow: First you get yourself a switch.
- Bruce Millikan: Fish for them?
- Jeremy Dow: Yeah, kind of.
- Bruce Millikan: What do you use for bait?
- Jeremy Dow: I'll show you in a minute.
- Bruce Millikan: Never heard of fishing for antelope.
- Jeremy Dow: It's flagging.
- Bruce Millikan: Huh?
- Jeremy Dow: That's what the Cheyennes used to call it and they ought to know 'cos they invente dit. See the antelope got more speed in the high plains but he's got more curiosity too. And that's what hets them into trouble. You wanna learn a lesson from that, Bruce. More antelopes were probably getting themselves killed by curiosity, long before Pandora's box was even thought of.
- Jeremy Dow: We can raise 50 guns. Maybe that's the kind of talk they'll understand.
- Flint McCullough: Quickest way to kill that boy is to ride up the canyon in force. It wouldn't matter if we had the 7th Cavalry behind us. Julas has got about a 6 hour head lead.
- Bill Hawks: We'll never catch him now.
- Jeremy Dow: But we gotta try.