- Christopher Hale: Coop, mind if I give the usual warning about wine, women and Poker?
- Cooper Smith: Not at all, Chris. Like you said, you've been out of touch.
- Barbara Lindquist: No matter how hard things get, he
- [her fiance]
- Barbara Lindquist: won't complain. You strong men aren't as strong as you think you are.
- Barbara Lindquist: It's scary to have all the men in your life in the same place. Especially in country like this.
- Barbara Lindquist: Coop, I expected to find men out here brutalised by their environment. I must say, they have lived up to expectation. But you're intelligent, well-informed, warm, friendly. Would you please tell me how you live your life in this desolation of nothing but chalk dust, red hot sun and sudden death?
- Cooper Smith: It's not all that bad, Barbara.
- Barbara Lindquist: It's worse.
- Cooper Smith: It's the only life I know.
- Barbara Lindquist: It's so easy, isn't it? Just to lie there and die. Just go to sleep. And nature will take care of the rest. Pioneers. Indestructible. Ten feet tall. Give me soggy biscuits and Boston milk. Thanks for coming to the stagecoach. Now, I'll have those glassy eyes of yours staring at me for the rest of my life and wherever I go. He saved my life and I left him on the trail. You certainly are leaving a lot of beautiful memories behind, aren't you.
- Cooper Smith: Come here, Barbara, I'm gonna draw you up a map of the trail ahead. It's gonna mean learning a dozen turns and a hundred landmarks. So we're going to take a little at a time.
- Barbara Lindquist: I'm not very good at that kind of thing. I have no sense of direction. I get lost in a Boston carriage. Anyway you'll be with me.
- Cooper Smith: It'll be better if we play it safe.
- Cooper Smith: Barbara, would a pretty girl like you really burden herself for the rest of her life with a cripple.
- Cooper Smith: What of a man was born under an open sky, hunted buffalo on the plains, and antelope in the forest, caught mountain trout in the stream for breakfast? What if a man spent his life on a horse and now can't ride?
- Christopher Hale: Do you love him?
- Barbara Lindquist: Pleas don't use that complicated word. I'm not sure that I know what it means any more.
- Cooper Smith: Who asked you to mother me?
- Barbara Lindquist: I volunteered. I was hoping for the chance to shoot up your other leg.
- Cooper Smith: At least you don't pass out a whole lot of phoney pity... Did you make this
- [soup]
- Cooper Smith: ?
- Barbara Lindquist: Mm, mm.
- Cooper Smith: I thought so, it's terrible.
- Cooper Smith: How would you know? The only thing you're used to is pork and ashes served with sand.
- Cooper Smith: You better watch out. I'll quote you to Wooster.