Dodge City

Wade Hatton:
I'm going to have you indicted for murder as an accessory after the fact.

Bud Taylor:
I had nothing to do with it!

Wade Hatton:
You're going to be dancing in thin air just the same as Yancey. Now, do you want to swing or do you want to tell me and save your neck?

[Wade throws one of Surrett's men out of the barbershop]

Wade Hatton:
About ten days for this customer, Tex. Five to cool off and five to think it over.

Tex Baird:
Hey, Wade! You ain't gonna keep me in here, are you?

Wade Hatton:
I'm sorry, Tex, you read that notice the same as anyone else. Three days in there won't do you a bit of harm.

Tex Baird:
Ah, but you can't do this to me after all we have been through together. We fought the war together, built a railroad together. We ate, drank, slept, lived and died together.

Wade Hatton:
And now we're going to be in jail together. You in there and me out here.

Jeff Surrett:
You see, I make $100,000 a year one way or another. Frankly, I don't need that much money. So naturally, I'd be willing to make a deal with anybody that would, uh, well, sort of see things my way. Make a mighty good deal for both of us.

Wade Hatton:
You mean a little friendly bribery, huh?

Jeff Surrett:
Well, you can catch more flies with molasses than you can with vinegar.

Dr. Irving:
I tell you, Ellen, we're the public disgrace of America. You know what the New York newspapers are saying? There's no law west of Chicago... and west of Dodge City, no God!

Wade Hatton:
You know, out here the trail boss has sometimes even got to take the law into his own hands.

Abbie Irving:
Oh, yes, pioneering I believe you call it, don't you?

Col. Dodge:
Ladies and gentlemen, today a great chapter of history has been written. And we take justifiable pride in bringing this railroad to the terminal furthest in this country. Someday, and I believe in the near future, a great city will spring from this very spot upon which we now stand. A city which will represent all that the West stands for: honesty, courage, morality and culture. For all the noble virtues of civilization, I can see a great metropolis of homes, churches, schools; a fine, decent city which will become the flower of the prairie.

Title Card:
Dodge City, Kansas - 1872. Longhorn cattle center of the world and wide-open Babylon of the American frontier - packed with settlers, thieves and gunmen.

Title Card:
Dodge City... rolling in wealth from the great Texas trail-herds... the town that knew no ethics but cash and killing.

Wade Hatton:
Well, what's the news in Dodge?

Charley:
Well, just about the same as always. Gamblin', drinkin', and killin'. Mostly killin'.

Rusty Hart:
Well, well. So this is Dodge City, huh? Sort of smells like Fort Worth, don't it?

Wade Hatton:
Oh, that's not the city you smell. That's you! We better get you to a bathtub before somebody shoots you for a buffalo.

Wade Hatton:
William Shakespeare.

Rusty Hart:
I never heard of him. What part of Texas is he from?

Wade Hatton:
[surprised at Rusty's ignorance] Stratford-on-Avon.

Tex Baird:
I decided to go back to Texas.

Rusty Hart:
What for?

Tex Baird:
Oh, I don't know. This place is getting too big and calm and peaceful-like.

[they're looking at the buffalo herd]

Rusty Hart:
Lucky devils: nothin' to do but eat and sleep.

Tex Baird:
That's right, hard head. The only difference between you and them is a pair of horns.

[Abbie laughs at Wade after he falls in the newspaper office]

Wade Hatton:
You know, there's an old saying in the British Army: "The law must always save its face in front of the natives."

Abbie Irving:
And what if the natives object to its face?

Wade Hatton:
We just put them across our knee... and spank them! Soundly!

Abbie Irving:
You're not suggesting that I'm a native?

Wade Hatton:
No. The only real native of Kansas is the buffalo. He's got a very hard head, a very uncertain temper and a very lonely future. Apart from that there's hardly any comparison between you.