Lt. Elgin: Spivy! You bash that prisoner one more time, I'll put those shackles on you.
Major Fambrough: Sir knight? I've just pissed in my pants... and nobody can do anything about it.
John Dunbar: The strangeness of this life cannot be measured: in trying to produce my own death, I was elevated to the status of a living hero.
John Dunbar: Dunbar, not Dumb Bear.
John Dunbar: I am Lieutenant John J. Dunbar and this is my post.
John Dunbar: Many times I'd felt alone, but until this afternoon I'd never felt completely lonely.
John Dunbar: Guns would make one warrior like two.
John Dunbar: How come we haven't seen any buffalo?
Timmons: Can't figure the stinking buffalo. Sometimes you don't see them for days, and sometimes they're out there as thick as curls on a whore.
John Dunbar: What about Indians?
Timmons: Indians? Goddamn Indians you'd just as soon not see, unless the bastards are dead. They're nothing but thieves and beggars.
Chosen answer: It shows that the officer was mentally disturbed, and he was the only one in the fort who knew about Dunbar's assignment. It sets the story up so that Dunbar could live with the Indians without the Army interfering with his life (No one expected any communications to or from Dunbar).
Twotall