The Big Trail

[Breck speaking over Wendy's grave]

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
Well, Zeke, old Wendy has gone on another trail.

Marshal:
Thorpe, why don't you get back on the Penzy Belle (a riverboat) and make yourself scarce. If you're here when the boat pulls out, the boys will certainly lead your pony out from under ya.

Red Flack, Wagon Boss:
Well, if it ain't Bill Thorpe, hey? I always thought you was hung and planted, I expect.

Bill Thorpe:
No, my time ain't arrived yet.

Red Flack, Wagon Boss:
But it looks as though it might be drawing close.

Bill Thorpe:
Well, I've been promised a hanging bee if I don't get out on the Penzy Belle, and the Captain promised me a necktie party if I set foot on the boat. It's a case of nowhere to go.

Red Flack, Wagon Boss:
It appears to me you do your shooting by daylight with too many people looking on, hey?

Zeke:
When a man begins to do a lot of talking about hanging, he better make pretty sure as to who is going to decorate the end of the rope.

Ruth Cameron:
Look how queer his horse is acting!

Zeke:
Yeah, he's riding zigzag - that's the Indian sign for palaver. There's the chief riding out to meet him now for a powwow.

Ruth Cameron:
They say you're going to hunt down Flack and Lopez.

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
That's what I aim to do.

Ruth Cameron:
But you can't do this awful thing - take two lives.

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
Frontier justice.

Pa Bascom:
What did they do, Coleman?

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
Killed my best friend. And I've been on their trail ever since.

Pa Bascom:
That's a serious charge. If you're sure, we'll call a settler's meeting in the morning to try 'em.

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
You can call a settler's meeting to bury 'em!

Pa Bascom:
What do you mean?

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
I kill my own rats.

Gussie's Mother-in-Law:
I was with your wife, Sarah, and she gave birth to twins.

Gussie:
Twins? Are they both mine?

Caption:
Dedicated to the men and women who planted civilization in the wilderness and courage in the blood of their children.

Caption:
Prairie schooners rolling west, praying for peace - but ready for battle.

Caption:
The last outpost, the turning back place for the weak; the starting place for the strong.

Caption:
They have not turned back, those who died; they stay and yet they go forward. Their spirit leads.

Caption:
Ten weary miles a day. There is no road, but there is a will, and history cuts the way.

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
We can't turn back! We're blazing a trail that started in England. Not even the storms of the sea could turn back the first settlers. And they carrie dit on further. They blazed it on through the wilderness of Kentucky. Famine, hunger, not even massacres could stop them. And now we picked up the trail again. And nothing can stop us! Not even the snows of winter, nor the peaks of the highest mountain. We're building a nation and we got to suffer! No great trail was ever built without hardship. And you got to fight! That's right. And when you stop fighting, that's death. What are you going to do, lay down and die? Not in a thousand years! You're going on with me!

Gussie:
Zeke, did you hear that terrible crash?

Zeke:
Hear it? I seen it! That was your wagon!

Gussie:
Was my mother-in-law in it?

Ruth Cameron:
Zack, you're not really leaving us?

Zeke:
Yeah, gal, I'm pullin' out. You're all nice and settled now and this here valley is getting altogether too civilized for me. Whenever I get more than three or four families within a hundred miles of me, I begin to feel kind of crowded.

Gussie:
You know, I don't like that fellow. He's the kind who will pat you on your back to your face, and then laugh in your face behind your back.

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
Say, Zeke, who was the he-grizzly that just went by?

Zeke:
That's Red Flack. He's bullwhackin' for Wellmore. He's gonna whack Wellmore's train clear through to Oregon.

Windy Bill:
You reckon you'll ever find out who downed old Ben?

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
It's just possible that a certain low-down coyote left his sign there.

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
And they taught me how to make a fire without even a flint. And how to make the best bow and arrows, too.

Boy:
Did they teach you how to make papooses?

Breck Coleman, Wagon Train Scout:
No, that's one of their own secret.