uires about hiring a Deputy U.S. Marshal. The sheriff gives three recommendations, and Mattie chooses to hire Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges). The taciturn, one-eyed Cogburn repeatedly rebuffs her offer, not believing she has the reward money to hire him. She raises the money by aggressively horse-trading with Colonel Stonehill (Dakin Matthews), who did business with her father. Meanwhile, Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) arrives on the trail of Chaney. LaBoeuf has been pursuing him for the murder of a state senator in Texas. He proposes to team up with Cogburn, who knows the Choctaw terrain where Chaney is hiding, but Mattie refuses his offer because she wishes Chaney to be hanged for her father's murder, not for the Texas crime. Mattie also insists on traveling with him to search for Chaney. But Cogburn later leaves without her, having gone with LeBoeuf to apprehend Chaney. After being refused passage on the ferry that conveyed Cogburn and LaBoeuf, Mattie crosses the river on horseback. LaBoeuf expresses his displeasure by birching Mattie with a switch rod, but Cogburn stops him. After a dispute over their respective service with the Confederate States of America ? Cogburn served with Quantrill's Raiders and LaBoeuf with Edmund Kirby Smith?Cogburn ends their agreement and LaBoeuf leaves. Later, while pursuing the "Lucky" Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper) gang that Chaney is supposedly traveling with, the two meet a trail doctor who directs them to an empty dugout for shelter. There they find two outlaws, Quincey (Paul Rae) and Moon (Domhnall Gleeson). As Cogburn interrogates Moon, Moon is fatally stabbed by Quincey, whom Cogburn then shoots dead. Before dying, Moon says Pepper and his gang are returning to the shack later that night. LaBoeuf arrives at the dugout just before the Pepper gang arrives, and is taken hostage. Cogburn, hiding on the hillside with Mattie, shoots and kills two gang members, but Pepper escapes. The next day, Cogburn, drunk, gets in an argument with LaBoeuf, who departs once again. Later, while getting water from a nearby stream, Mattie encounters Chaney. She shoots him, but he survives and drags her back to Ned, who forces Cogburn to leave by threatening to kill her. Being short a horse, Ned leaves Mattie with Chaney, ordering him not to harm her or he will not get paid, and to take her to safety after his remount arrives. Once alone, Chaney disobeys Ned and tries to kill Mattie. LaBoeuf appears and knocks Chaney out, explaining that when he heard the shots he rode back, and he and Cogburn devised a plan. They watch from a cliff as Cogburn takes on the remaining members of Ned's gang, killing two and mortally wounding Ned, before his horse is struck and falls, trapping Cogburn's leg. Before Pepper can kill Cogburn, LaBoeuf shoots and kills Pepper from roughly four hundred yards away. Chaney comes to and attacks LaBoeuf, knocking him out. Mattie seizes LaBoeuf's rifle and shoots Chaney dead in the chest. The recoil, however, knocks her into a deep pit containing rattlesnakes. Cogburn arrives, but she is bitten before he can get to her. Cogburn rides day and night to get Mattie to a doctor, carrying her on foot after shooting her exhausted horse, finally making his way to a trading post. Twenty-five years later, Mattie (Elizabeth Marvel) ? now 40 and with only one arm, the result of an amputation necessitated by gangrene from the snakebite ? receives a note from Cogburn with a flyer enclosed, inviting her to meet him at a traveling Wild West show that he now performs in. She arrives, only to learn that Cogburn died three days earlier. She has his body moved to her family cemetery. Standing over Cogburn's grave, she reflects on her decision to move his remains, about never having married, and how time catches up with everyone.

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