- Sally-Ann Rankin: GIL! GIL FAVOR! Gil, honey.
- Gil Favor: Sally-Ann.
- Sally-Ann Rankin: It's so good to see you. You haven't changed a speck.
- Gil Favor: You certainly have. For the better.
- Sally-Ann Rankin: [She kisses him on the lips] Ooh, we always were kissing cousins, practically relations but always kissing cousins.
- [She kisses him some more, again on the lips]
- Sally-Ann Rankin: . So good to see you. Who's your friend?
- Gil Favor: Oh, er. That's Rowdy Yates, he's just the ramrod.
- Sergeant Shaler: You haven't asked yet but I know you're about to. So I'll save you the trouble. What are we doing here? We're building a dam, Sonny. Right where you came through's gonna be under forty feet of water.
- Rowdy Yates: Ah, yeah. Coming from where?
- Sergeant Shaler: Fron the Hourglass River.
- Rowdy Yates: Hourglass River. You mean that creek we just rode through. There's not enough water there to bathe a goat.
- Sergeant Shaler: [laughs at Rowdy's naivity] This is the dry season. On the map, it's a river.
- Rowdy Yates: On the map. Yeah, well, never mind why or where. When?
- Sally-Ann Rankin: Let's drink a toast to Rankin's Folly.
- Captain James Rankin: That's what my wife's name for the dam, Mr Favor. Of course, time may prove her right.
- Sally-Ann Rankin: Yes, Gil, he lied to me.
- Gil Favor: Well, it does occur to me that the exaggeration may not be all on one side, you know.
- Sally-Ann Rankin: Well, let's talk about us.
- Gil Favor: Fairhill, the plantation house, wine cellar, big parties, fine stables. As I recollect it, you lived in a four room house in River Street.
- Sally-Ann Rankin: But they was just little white lies. They didn't hurt anybody.
- Sally-Ann Rankin: James, don't you remember? I told you that Mr Favor helped me lead the cotillion on my 16th Birthday at Fairhill.
- Rowdy Yates: And runs the firing squad too.
- Sergeant Shaler: No, Sonny. The firing squad is reserved for soldiers. We hang murderers just like the civilians do.
- Gil Favor: But quicker. The sergeant's just been telling me, I'll be tried, and convicted, and buried, and forgotten all come tomorrow night.
- Sergeant Shaler: Aw, no. We'll probably think about yer 'til the end of the week.
- Wishbone: What do you mean I can't? Get out of my way, soldier boy, or I'll climb you like a tree and bust off the branches on the way up.
- Gil Favor: It's been a 6, 7 month job. Um. The water starts piling up behind that dam. No man on earth could tell how many men it took to build it. Which might explain an awful lot of things.
- Gil Favor: Not wanting to offend the Lieutenant, I must say it's rather like, ah, having a rabbit speak for you at a convention of timber wolves.
- Sally-Ann Rankin: Maybe a little money my Daddy left me.
- Gil Favor: Sally-Anne, your Daddy didn't leave you nothing. He didn't have nothing to leave you.
- Sally-Ann Rankin: Just little white lies. But the Captain promised me Washington DC, and parties, and Paris gowns, and- He did. Honestly he did.
- Rowdy Yates: Let me see. You're a 50 cent a day soldier, doing pick and shovel work of the southside of nowhere. Probably eating iron rations three times a day. Now, what is the thing you'd like the smell coming your way the most?
- Wishbone: Took you long enough to figure it out.
- Sergeant Shaler: You know, Mr Favor, I'd hate to play crib with you if all you had on your mind was the cards.
- Sergeant Shaler: Well, then you'd better skedaddle over and get your CO to talk to mine. That's the way the Army likes it. Rank talks to rank.