At the gallop, ho!
Fort Laramie
Fort Laramie, starring Raymond Burr as Captain Lee Quince.
Specially transcribed tales of the dark and tragic ground of the wild frontier.
The saga of fighting men who rode the rim of empire.
And the dramatic story of Lee Quince, Captain of Cavalry.
Fort Laramie
I never seen the sense of it.
Scrubbing day after day.
Putting clean clothes on the dirty army.
It's a way to earn a keep.
Every woman marries a man earns a keep.
Night and day it's all earning.
Not today, yes.
Don't start on that talk again today.
Now I plumb forgot about your delicate condition, Stella Merchant.
You'd be minding my manners more.
It's just I ain't used to running into royalty on soap sides roll.
Honest I ain't.
I didn't mean to start you off, S.
I'm sorry.
Sorry are you?
Well you're sorry looking, I'll say that for you.
Another day or two and you won't be able to stand in the same room with your washboard.
All right S, all right.
She's a wash tub now, Yar.
Couldn't you just be quiet?
Think what you will, but keep it to yourself.
Enjoying yourself ladies?
Having a fine social hour, are you?
Oh Fanny, it's her.
Look at her.
Can you tell by looking she's a regular queen?
I'm doing the best I can.
If you'd let me be, if you wouldn't go at me so much.
Now listen to me, Stella Merchant.
And hear what I say.
Fanny, don't.
Don't shake me.
I'll do what need be.
You're not earning your pay.
Now you get some elbow grease behind that scrubbing or I'll send you packing.
With no pay for the month.
You wouldn't do that, Fanny.
We need the money with the baby coming.
We need every cent, Fanny.
Then earn it.
Scrub.
That's the way you get money around here.
Please Fanny, please.
Don't.
She's going white, Fanny.
Nanny.
If I could just get some air.
Just a little air.
Well now, a little air.
That's what you'll have, Fanny.
You made a fool of our eyes. You don't get around here.
All right, Stella.
Grab a hold one side of this clothes basket.
You'll get all the air you need hanging clothes outside.
I said grab a hold.
All right.
Not quite so fast, Fanny.
Yeah, you're moving like coal molasses now.
Hurry your way, Stella.
Yeah.
Pity they ain't some nice shade trees for you.
Maybe a hammock.
Ain't you the shape for a hammock, though?
Maybe I shouldn't try.
I thought I could work right up to the very day the baby came.
Other women do.
You ain't other women.
You have no cause to talk to me like you do, Fanny.
You an ass.
I never give you cause.
You never give me nothing but an awful bellyache.
Combing and bathing and making pretty for the men.
For my man, Fanny.
That's it, is it?
You're so full of lying sweet talk you believe yourself.
I thought we could all be friends.
Out here so far from home, all of us.
I thought we could help each other.
You're long on help, ain't you?
Everybody help.
Everybody be happy.
Well, you be happy, Stella.
Like you're so willing to tell anything to be near Billy.
Happy to earn your keep washing filth.
Happy to bury his young and happy, happy, happy.
I love Billy, Fanny.
Love, ha.
You don't understand.
You really don't understand.
I never realized that till now.
It's the young is don't understand.
Did you never love Luke?
Even then, when you were young?
Did you never love him, Fanny?
Hang the clothes.
It would be awful if you didn't love.
You'll get no pay for John and taking the air like you are.
You keep saying you need the money, we'll earn it.
I will, Fanny. I will earn it. I'm glad to.
And see you keep that glad stuff to yourself.
You and your love and the life you feel kicking in you.
I've buried more young'uns than you'll ever have.
I'm sorry.
Truly sorry, Fanny.
Don't you never be sorry for me.
Please, please, please.
He was too young to understand that you should know
If i'm pretty those who slept there
Words that Fenard사가
We left it and went cross country, west to north, to a point about here.
Hmm. It's almost to Medicine Bow River.
I think they're main camps on the Medicine Bow.
But you ran into other camps along the way?
Mm-hmm. Old camps, Major.
Yeah, the information you got from the settlers in the area point to that.
No Cheyenne in their vicinity since last fall. Isn't that the word?
And no Army patrols since last fall.
That follows?
To me it does.
The settlers have spent the winter in peace since the Cheyenne ran off their horses last fall.
The cavalry sends out one small patrol in the late spring and the Cheyenne mysteriously reappear.
But not in numbers.
All right. Cheyenne scouts, eight of them.
You could have killed them at any time you were following them.
Just about. Only they were leading us, Major. There's a difference.
Only because you were willing to be led.
It was our business, reconnaissance.
You don't kill eight scouts who are leading you into a trap.
Of course you don't, if you're sure it's a trap.
Look, for two days, if we didn't keep pace with them, they waited for us.
The morning of the third day, they cut off into a canyon that leads straight to the Medicine Bow like we were leading a charge behind them.
I know an ambush when I see one.
And you don't ride into them with ten men behind you.
I don't ride into them with a company behind me.
All right, Captain.
I'm... I'm sorry, Major. We rode all night.
You rode all night for three nights. I know that, Lee. I want you to get some rest.
I'd like to finish my report, sir.
It can wait till morning.
I don't think so.
All right, Lee. Let's get it all said.
I don't like it this way, but one of us has to get a good night's sleep.
I'll sleep fine, Major.
I will, too, once this is over.
Now, from your report, you seem convinced the Cheyenne have their main camp on the Medicine Bow.
I get the impression you think they're getting restless.
They'll have to move somewhere.
That country had about one winter's good hunting left in it. They've had that.
If they haven't raided since fall, you're right. We could stop them before they start.
They'll move north, maybe as far north as the Montana territory.
Why not south?
Other tribes, Utes, Apaches, the Cheyenne would rather face the white man.
I know.
You're bleeding me pretty dry, Major.
How's that?
I got a feeling I'm mapping a campaign I'm not going to be part of.
You just finished the toughest part of a campaign.
A lot of men can lead a charge who can't do successful reconnaissance.
Major, I'm captain.
You're assigned a quarter until eight o'clock tomorrow morning.
Who's going to replace me, Major?
I am.
I'd be a fool to question that choice.
Yes, you would.
That's all, Captain. Dismissed.
Yes, sir.
Oh, Major, who's going to replace you?
Me?
Yeah, here, as post commander.
You are.
Any questions?
No, sir. No questions.
You can't see by that light, Stella.
I'm fine enough for this little bit of hand stitching, Billy.
Well, best you rest yourself a while.
I want to sit in the doorway with me.
In a while, honey.
Well, it's a fine night, Stella.
Slice of moon.
The sun's out.
I'm going to go to bed.
Slice of moon.
Nice bit of breeze off the sweet clover.
I can smell it from here.
Like home, ain't it, Billy?
It is home, Stella.
Only one we ever had together.
You ever think of it?
Maybe some engine in his car sitting like we are tonight.
Looking out at the stars.
Talking about the papoose they're going to have in no time at all.
Oh, you're a merchant.
How you think of things like that?
They come to me.
Well, don't they come to you?
You know they do.
It's part of what we have together.
You and me.
That's not a man thought, is it?
Listen to how you sound like Luke and Joe.
Sweet Billy, they call me.
It's just because I notice a sky or a flower.
You don't mind them, Billy.
I don't.
I don't mind them.
Like you don't mind finding them.
Yes.
Why you say it that way?
Because that's the way it is, Stella.
Feeling folks like us, we feel too much sometimes.
We let folks get to us and rub us wrong maybe.
Maybe hurt us some.
Love you.
Sure.
I said we were feeling folks.
Oh, Billy.
Billy.
When you going to have that baby, Stella?
Soon, honey.
As soon as I can.
It's a hard time for you.
I know that.
Not too hard, Billy.
You're fretting some.
Not real pain.
Like a catch, you know.
Not often enough to matter.
Wouldn't be right to lie to me, honey.
I don't lie to you.
Ever.
Sometimes you don't tell me all the truth.
You're feeling folks too.
You ought to know good as me.
Yeah.
Yeah, I ought to.
You're fretting some, Billy Merchant.
That's who's fretting around here.
No man's going to be a father has all the rights.
You know, they do say some men take on worse than women, folks.
You know that, Stella?
Swimmy-headed, mourning times like that?
That ain't what's troubling you.
No.
No, it ain't.
It sure ain't.
How many times I asked you to give up your work to laundry?
You mean how many times today you asked me?
Yeah, and always you tell me it's what you gotta do.
No matter what.
It is, Billy.
It's the same with me, Stella.
I got my work to do.
No matter what.
Now then, I ain't asked you to give up being a trooper.
How do you clear? I don't know what B Company'd do without you.
I ain't drawed nothing but garrison duty for more than a month now.
I just ain't gonna last.
Billy.
Unstable detail today.
We were sure ready in those mounts for something more than a parade ground, Stella.
You got orders to move out?
No, ma'am.
No, but Captain Quincy's patrol come back on the post today.
And when reconnaissance comes back, we just gotta be moving out.
Be nice if you's wrong, Billy.
We gotta face up to it, Stella.
You might just gotta have that baby without me.
I sure never planned that way.
If it had to be, would you want to try to make it back home?
To my ma?
Sure.
Why, Billy Merchant, that'd take every cent we own and then sold.
I ain't thinking of that.
Well, then you think about it right now.
Only don't take the bother.
If they was money, they ain't time.
Stella.
Stella, I want to be with you more than anything I could name.
But I can't ask the favor of a leave.
You understand that?
You got your work to do, Billy.
No matter what.
Come in.
Captain Quince, sir.
Sergeant.
I must have took a wrong turn, sir.
I was told to report to the office of the post commander.
Close the door, Sergeant.
Yes, sir.
Sit down, Gorse.
And Gorse, any time you want to get rid of that stupid grin, you can.
Yes, sir.
You look powerful big behind that desk.
Yeah, too big for the desk.
Maybe too small for the job.
You'll do what you got to do, Captain.
I was thinking more that we'd do what I got to do, Gorse.
You was.
Major Daggett tells me that Sergeant Pearson takes a big load off him sitting at that desk outside.
But he ain't sitting out there now.
He's getting his equipment together, fixing to move out with Major Daggett after Reveille tomorrow morning.
Captain Quince.
He'll need a good briefing, Sergeant Pearson will.
Well, I'd like to volunteer to...
Good. That saves me an order, Sergeant.
To go with B Company as a special scout.
And when you've finished briefing him, he can fill you in on the details of his desk job.
One of us ain't listening, Captain.
It's a side of the Army we don't know much about, Gorse. Time we did.
You being in charge and all, you think you could arrange a quick transfer for us? Maybe the infantry?
Better find Sergeant Pearson. Tell him all you know.
Yes, sir.
Now that'd be my job, wouldn't it?
Till we get swinging doors, guess it is.
Lieutenant Cybert, sir.
Sergeant.
Captain Quince, sir.
Oh, come in, Mr. Cybert.
Your duty begins in an hour, Sergeant.
Yes, sir.
With the captain's permission, I'd like to offer congratulations, sir.
You came here for a briefing, Mr. Cybert.
I understand that.
Sit down.
Yes, sir.
You familiar with the Horseshoe Creek area?
Oh, yes, sir. That map you're using...
The map's wrong.
I drew that map, Captain.
Then you're wrong. Horseshoe Creek does not feed from the Medicine Bow River.
No, sir. From the Little Medicine Bow.
Not by 20 miles, Mr. Cybert.
20 miles of twisting canyon through the Laramie Range.
That's this line here.
Horseshoe Creek is east of the range.
Medicine Bow and the Little Medicine Bow are to the west.
They do not join.
Well, they must have once, sir.
It's like a riverbed all through the floor of that canyon.
They didn't join last fall when you drew this map.
You mean the waters didn't join. The riverbeds did.
Mr. Cybert, a cavalry company moves with water.
Water points a course of travel, a campsite.
I know that, sir.
Do you?
Captain Quince, that's the first country I ever charted,
the first map I ever drew.
Well?
It's not an excuse, sir.
Sounds like one, Mr. Cybert.
What I mean, seeing it was my first real attempt and all,
I never thought that we'd be using that map to campaign by.
We're not.
That's good.
You bet it's good, Mr. Cybert. It's good and lucky.
I pulled this map out of the major's files last night to study it.
I spent the rest of the night drawing up a proper map.
Here, Mr. Cybert. You tear it up.
Thank you, Captain.
Don't thank me. Remember it. Remember it good.
And then forget it.
Captain Quince.
I've already forgotten it, Mr. Cybert.
Can't see him now, merchant. Whatever it is, it's got to wait.
Babies don't wait, Sergeant.
Trouble there, men?
No trouble, Captain.
Captain Quince, sir, I'd like to...
That's enough, trooper.
Company B's forming fours in the parade ground, merchant.
Yes, sir, Captain.
But what I'd like to...
No buts about it.
Captain Quince, I respectfully request permission for an in...
Can I please get a hearing from you, sir?
Captain, don't conduct no hearings this time of day, trooper.
It's all right, Goyce. Let's have it, merchant. And quick.
Oblige, sir.
Anytime now, any little minute, I'm gonna have a baby, Captain.
Well...
Sergeant, my respects to Major Daggett.
Tell him Trooper Merchant will be on the parade ground in two minutes.
Yes, sir.
I met my wife, Captain. Stella. She's having a baby.
I'm glad to hear that, merchant.
Now, seeing it's her first, sir, and her being alone,
I mean no kinfolk nearby to help or lend a hand.
I hope you're not asking me for leave, trooper.
No, no, no, sir. I mean to move out with the company.
You'll move out with the company.
You'll have nothing on your mind but the Cheyenne.
I know what you mean, sir.
Then all we gotta settle is what you mean, merchant.
Well, sir, it pleased me to tell Stella that the post surgeon was on hand to tend after her.
And the baby, too, when it comes.
Well, that... that eased her some, sir.
Well?
It had eased me some.
If you was pleased to tell me, I was telling Stella all the truth.
The post surgeon's leaving with B Company, merchant.
I see, sir.
Your wife in your quarters now?
No, sir. No, she's working in the laundry.
Well, we're holding things up, merchant.
Yes, sir. And thanks for hearing me out.
Merchant, you know that I...
Merchant, women have babies every day.
Yes, sir. I'll sure try to look on it that way, sir.
Good luck, trooper.
Look at that Luke. Never was a man so glad to leave his woman.
This one is glad, right next to him.
Joe, beaming and smirking, quakes on my nerves sometimes,
seeing that brother face engine arrows in us.
Well, I ain't grieving none myself.
Luke's been home a month.
A good month.
Good and long, that's a fact.
I know what you're thinking, Ass.
You sure?
You'll be to yourself. Fall to yourself.
That's pure blessing.
You know it is, Fanny.
They haven't gone yet. I was most afraid they'd be gone.
Well, now, look who's managing a brave little smile.
She don't know enough to laugh, Ass.
Care no mind.
I don't see Billy. Could you just point out Billy to me?
Use your young eyes. No matter you don't see him,
he couldn't stand a chance of missing you,
popping clean into the parade grounds the way you are.
Could be your sweet Billy's in trouble.
He was late for formation.
And he come out of headquarters with Captain Quinn, so.
You can't fret me, Fanny.
Say what you will to two of you. You can't fret me.
There ain't nobody can fret me no more.
There they go.
Only stir in sight they is, bands a-playing,
and flags a-flying, and men leaving.
Would you, if you see him, point out Billy to me?
I declare I can't see him yet.
Well, you're not likely to yet. Them's officers up front.
Major Daggett and that Lieutenant Cybert.
Who's that other one riding a Twixton?
Well, I declare that's Major Trotter.
Now, you don't see him riding off every day.
Wonder who's sending the hospital with him a-going.
Who's Major Trotter?
You mean you don't know the post surgeon when you see him?
Post surgeon, Lee?
Well, you didn't think he'd stay here
to look after you ones now, did you?
He must not have known.
Billy wouldn't have said if he'd known.
Billy? Billy?
Don't you worry none now, Billy.
Not a worry.
Oh, come on, S, for this turns me stomach good.
I'll get the door for you, Captain.
You sure this is where she lives?
It's Merchant's, all right.
Turn the bed down, Gorse.
Yes, sir.
Some mite stuffy in here. I'll get that window.
And some water, Gorse. She's limp as a rag.
Yes, sir.
Just like I found her, Captain, keeled over in a tracks.
The water's so cold.
Just like I found her, Captain, keeled over in a tracks.
A little water on her face maybe will brighten her.
She's breathing quiet enough.
Too quiet, Captain?
I don't think so.
Oh, Billy.
She thinks you're her husband, Captain.
Big mistake.
Here, ma'am.
You drink a little water.
You come around.
I don't know you.
No, ma'am.
You're in my quarters, and I don't...
I don't know you.
No sense giving her a fright, Captain. I'll just go along.
You leave me, Gorse. I'll throw you right in the stockade.
Yes, sir.
Oh.
Now take her hands, Gorse.
Take her hands?
Hold them.
Yes, sir.
You know...
I'm gonna have...
a baby.
I...
I guess you're about as right as you can be, ma'am.
Oh.
Well...
Go ahead, Captain.
Go ahead and what?
Hit it.
Hit it? It's a girl.
No matter. You're supposed to hit it, one on its sit-down.
That's right. It's the first right move we made.
Now...
Now don't cry, little girl.
Don't you cry. You'll wake your ma.
Don't worry, Gorse.
I don't think of ma as man.
The script was specially written for Fort Laramie by Kathleen Height,
with sound patterns by Bill James and Ray Kemper,
musical supervision by Amerigo Marino.
Featured in the cast were Jack Moyles and Harry Bartel,
with Virginia Gregg, Dick Krenna, Helen Klebe, and Anne Morrison.
Company, attention!
Dismiss.
Next week, another transcribed story of the Northwest Frontier
and the troopers who fought under Lee Quince, captain of cavalry.
Sitting ducks are supposed to be targets for trouble.
Your car is a sitting duck and yourself a target for trouble when you park carelessly.
These days, problems of finding a parking place leads some drivers to attempt parking in spaceships.
They leave parts of the car exposed, jutting out into traffic lanes.
As a result, another car swerving or coming around a corner can smack into the exposed front or rear end.
Double parking, along with all the frustration it can cause,
also increases the hazard of this kind of accident.
Don't make your car a sitting duck in the way and asking for trouble.
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