Continuity mistake: In the scene when John Wayne puts his reins between his teeth and his rifle in his right hand and his pistol in his left, at one point they switch hands.
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: The hat band on John Wayne's hat once belonged to Gary Cooper. It was a gift to John from Cooper.
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