Gus: Sorry about the Colonel back.
Jed Cooper: I ain't glad.
Gus: Jed, you did right. And I'm proud of you. Makes me feel as though I didn't bring you up too bad after all.
Jed Cooper: I didn't do it for you, Gus.
Gus: She made you, didn't she? Well, most likely she wanted him dead just as much as you do, but only she couldn't. That 'll be the Christian in her. That's the part of your education that's most been sadly lacking. You ain't got no Christian in you.
Jed Cooper: I ain't?
Gus: No. There's two kinds of love, Jed. The way you love and the way a christian does. She can't be had your way.
Jed Cooper: How the Christians do?
Gus: Well, they begin with... you don't pine for another man's wife.
Jed Cooper: Never?
Gus: Well, maybe sometimes. But a good Christian fights it off.
Jed Cooper: How?
Gus: Well, he gots himself another woman.
Jed Cooper: You mean a Christian loves a woman he don't like, because he can't get the one he wants? I call that real sneaky!

Col. Frank Marston: [after being saved from the bear trap by Jed] She wouldn't let you do it, would she?
Jed Cooper: You're lucky, that's all.
Col. Frank Marston: Luck had nothing to do with it. I know my wife pretty well. She's a fine person.
Jed Cooper: Fine people can make mistakes too.

Corinna Marston: I married a man - not a uniform.

[a band of heretofore friendly Indians have just taken the trappers' rifles and furs]
Jed Cooper: We never fished nor killed any more than we could eat. And we're not Blue Coats. Why are they taking it out on us?
Gus: Civilization.
Jed Cooper: Civilization?
Gus: Civilization is creepin' up on us, lads. The Blue Coats aren't satisfied with gobblin' up all the lands east of the 'Sippi. No, they won't stop till they've pushed us over the Rockies and into the Pacific Ocean. It's a drownin' fate that awaits us all. These are calamitous times, Jed, calamitous times.