Continuity mistake: At the dinner scene when Mattie Ross is trying to obtain Rooster Cogburn's services, Rooster clears the table, and in the next scene he re-clears the table by pushing everything aside to play cards with Chin Lee.
Lawyer Goudy: I believe you testified that you backed away from old man Wharton?
Rooster Cogburn: Yes, sir.
Goudy: Which direction were you going?
Rooster Cogburn: Backward. I always go backward when I'm backin' away.
Trivia: John Wayne won his only Oscar for his performance as Rooster Cogburn in this movie.
Answer: The mountain in the background appears to have two vertical grooves down the surface facing the camera. Those grooves are far too wide to be ski trails. They are simply a natural part of the mountain. Mountains are subjected, over hundreds of thousands of years, to a variety of natural forces, such as wind erosion, water erosion, tectonic shifts and earthquakes, just to name a few. These cause mountains to have irregular shapes, and irregular surfaces.
Michael Albert