Old enough to kill, but too young to have some fun with prostitutes.
I love John Wayne and I really liked this movie, but just think that it's just funny how sex is treated in America in comparison to violence.
I get that you're half way joking here and please take this response as polite conversation not trolling or trying to start an argument.
Wayne's character was trying to keep the boys from growing up too fast. Remember the conversation between Mr. Nightlinger and the Madame about how a boy's first time should be in with a young girl in a buggy and not some sterile transaction with no feelings or emotions involved?
He and Roscoe Brown tried to keep them from the violence too. The boys themselves felt they were forced get the cattle back and take them to Belfouche in order to get the now widow Anderson her money. Sure there was some aspect of revenge as well, but I felt that the director tried to show (using the shots of their faces after cutting the reins) that in the end, even though the boys did what they thought was right, it changed them and not for the better. That the whole thing had taken something from them, and that something was their youth.