Wagon Train (TV Series)

Weight of Command (1961)

Ward Bond: Major Seth Adams

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Quotes 

• Major Seth Adams : Signs all 'round yer. All ya gotta do is read 'em. It was all 'round us all right. It wasn't buffalo. I had my mind on tomorrow's hunting and we paid for my blindness in blood. That's the way you generally pay for your mistakes West of the 100th Meridian. You pay in blood.

• Major Seth Adams : Any time anything gets too easy, it's immoral.

  Prudence Gentry : What's immoral?

  Major Seth Adams : That's anything your Aunt Matilda would not approve of.

  Prudence Gentry : I haven't got any Great Aunt Matilda.

• Major Seth Adams : He's got enough booze up there to blow the top off a chimney rock.

• Prudence Gentry : Billy's going, why can't I?

  Major Seth Adams : Honey, Billy is a boy and he's 16 years old. Now, boys can go buffalo hunting but girls can't. You're a lady.

  Prudence Gentry : I'm no lady.

  Major Seth Adams : You will be one of these days. Beside old Malachi Jenkins is probably gonna go hunting with us. That language of his, I assure you, would not be approved by your Great Aunt Matilda.

  Prudence Gentry : It's immoral.

• Major Seth Adams : Maybe you think that was a stray cavalry horse, but, by golly, I don't. I got a notion that whoever was riding that horse is laying out there on the prairie flat on his back with no hair on his head. And I'd like to bet you it wasn't a cavalry horse, militia.

  Duke Shannon : Cavalry, militia, what's the difference?

  Major Seth Adams : There's a whole lot of difference when it comes to common sense.

• Major Seth Adams : Did you look for any smokes?

  Duke Shannon : Yeah, nothing.

• Charlie Wooster : What do you want me to say?

  Major Seth Adams : Answer me.

  Charlie Wooster : Well, I can't give you the answer you're looking for, Major, I wish I could but I can't. I know exactly what you want me to say. Sure, it took us twelve and a half hours, sure, it's perfectly all right to push through in the night, and leave those hunters behind. Sure, there'll be a whole army of Cheyenne ambush in the morning if we don't get through. I can't say it, Major. You're the boss. You're running this outfit. You do the thinking and you give the orders. All by yourself too.

• Major Seth Adams : It's my job to guess at a time like this. I'm guessing that old Black Hawk is up north there with at least half a dozen other Cheyenne chiefs, maybe some Arapaho and Pawnee and even the Sioux. I'm guessing they'll be sweeping down here in the morning before sun up. Three or four thousand strong. God help us if we're in their way.

• Bill Hawks : You out of your mind?

  Major Seth Adams : I said we're going ahead.

  Bill Hawks : Major, there's two men back there holding off twenty Indians. And they can't outlast the night.

  Major Seth Adams : I'm sorry for them. I wish I could go after them. I can't.

  Bill Hawks : We're going. I told 'em I was coming back and I'm going back.

  Major Seth Adams : You're not going any place, Bill, unless I tell you. Get that through your head. Those 20 Cheyenne bucks you're talking about, they're not renegades, they're part of a war.

  Bill Hawks : WAR? What are you talking about Black Hawk signed a peace treaty.

  Major Seth Adams : That's gone up in smoke. Black Wolf's village is burnt out, his whole village.

• Major Seth Adams : Did you hear me, Bill?

  Bill Hawks : I just pray to God that you know what you're doing, that's all.

  Major Seth Adams : I do too.

• Major Seth Adams : His camp on the Little Blue, 200 lodges burnt to the ground. Looked to me like some of militia might'd hit him a couple of days ago. Ashes still hot when we came through this afternoon.

• Bill Hawks : [the Major picks up a harmonica from a dead passenger]  What can I say?

  Major Seth Adams : Nothin'.

  Bill Hawks : There ain't a man on earth that can measure up to you. Not one.

  Major Seth Adams : Let's get the burying done, Bill. We've got a long way to go.

• Charlie : You say Little Blue?

  Major Seth Adams : Yeah, that's where his camp was.

  Charlie : That not Black Wolf. That Crow village. Black Wolf down on Wachita.

  Major Seth Adams : Ooh. When did he move down there?

  Charlie : Two months.

• Major Seth Adams : Any time you feel like you want a steak, all you gotta do is get way up there on a rock and sit real quiet. And pretty soon they'll come walking by just bellowing to be eaten. Cheyenne, he figures that's a pretty good way for things to be.

  Prudence Gentry : And what do we figure?

  Major Seth Adams : We figure that's bad, that's bad, So we set out to kill 'em off so we can cover the range with cattle. Cattle that gotta be fed, they gotta be watered and they gotta be taken care of when they're sick. That's the way of the White Man.

• Bill Hawks : Saw some fresh horse signs out in front. Looked like someone rode up whe Malachi was fetching some water. Probably an old mountain man with a jug. We hollared ourselves hoarse and went in, sat down and ate his supper. Stayed until sun up. No sign of him.

  Major Seth Adams : h, he was up in Sioux country. By golly, it will start me thinking. Didya see any Cheyenne?

  Bill Hawks : Aw, you don't have to worry about the Cheyenne, not since old Black Wolf put his mark on that Peace Treaty last fall.

  Major Seth Adams : Did you see any sign on the way back?

  Bill Hawks : Not Indian. Shod horses. Must have been a troop of cavalry from Fort Willoughby.

  Major Seth Adams : Fresh tracks?

  Bill Hawks : Since the rain.

  Major Seth Adams : What in tarnation are they doing up in this part of the country? Just exercising, I expect.

• Joe Henry : Just a bunch of young hotheads, broke away from Black Hawk. They've been taking nips at the farmers and freight wagons this here about. We run 'em off yesterday about 10 miles out of the flash.

  Major Seth Adams : You, ah, seen Black Wolf?

  Joe Henry : No.

  Major Seth Adams : Well, home come you know so much about 'em?

  Joe Henry : Charlie here, his mother's Cheyenne.

• Bill Hawks : It's pride, isn't it? Stubborness and pride, isn't that it, Major?

  Major Seth Adams : Bill, don't say anything you're going to be sorry for.

  Bill Hawks : Can't help it. I gave my word to two men that I'd bring them back help.

  Major Seth Adams : Listen to me, Bill. That half-breed over there is lying. He's led this outfit into an ambush.