Robert Ryan credited as playing...
Blaise Starrett
- Hal Crane: I'll fight for what I believe, Mr. Starrett. I'll die if I have to, but I'll fight. I want you to know that.
- Blaise Starrett: You got a big mouth, farmer. You got big eyes, too. You came here a year ago in your broken down wagon looking for a choice spot to settle and you think you found it. But you never stopped to think what made it such a good place. When Dan and I came here, Bitters was a nesting place for every thief and killer in the territory. A man's life wasn't worth the price of a bullet. No woman was safe on the streets, let alone in a lonely farmhouse. It took more than a big mouth to get rid of the lice who infested every bend of the road you ride so safely on. I'm not saying Dan and I did it alone, but we did more than our share. We hunted them down in the freezing cold while you sat back in the East hugging your pot-bellied stove. Nobody thanked us. Nobody paid us. We did it because we felt we belonged. We earned the right to belong. And all you've done is ride in here and put down your stinking boots. And now you tell us that you belong and we don't. Mr. Crane, you said you'd fight to keep what you want. Well, I've been doing that for twenty years and I intend to keep doing it, and no pig-belly farmer is going to stop me!
- Blaise Starrett: The trail ends in this town. There's no place to go but back.
- Jack Bruhn: The trail back is closed.
- Vic, General Store Owner: I don't hold for killin'.
- Blaise Starrett: You don't have to... as long as you got somebody to do it for you.
- Blaise Starrett: I'm through being reasonable. I told Crane what would happen if he strung that wire.
- Dan, Starret's Foreman: Blaise, we've pulled over some hard hills together, and I've rode behind you all the way. But a wire fence is a poor excuse to make a widow out of Crane's wife. What have you been thinking about all winter - Crane's barb wire fence, or Crane's pretty wife, Helen?
- Helen Crane: Everything has to be on Blaise Starrett's terms. You don't want the farmers to fence their farms. You back your orders with guns. You want another man's wife but the man has to be dead before you'll take her! You don't have much mercy, do you, Blaise?
- Blaise Starrett: You won't find much mercy anywhere in Wyoming.
- Helen Crane: You're not a cruel man. I've been close enough to you to know. Why must you act like one?
- Blaise Starrett: Because I can't feel sorry for someone I hate.
- Helen Crane: Do you hate me too, Blaise?
- [kiss]
- Jack Bruhn: How many people live around here?
- Blaise Starrett: About 20.
- Jack Bruhn: Who's the law?
- Blaise Starrett: We handle our own law.
- Jack Bruhn: Not now.
- Jack Bruhn: I know what I'm doing and I know what Gene's doing. But you, what's your reason? Why do you want to die?
- Blaise Starrett: I know what I'm doing too, Bruhn. Let's leave it at that.
- Jack Bruhn: I guess every fool has his reason.
- Helen Crane: Are you doing it because of me? I'd like to know, Blaise.
- Blaise Starrett: I'm doing it because of myself.
