Tons of Scenes Cut = Abrupt Ending?

I absolutely loved this movie! I was surprised by the violence (compared to other John Wayne movies, YES there was violence in this) but I enjoyed it so much. You have Richard Boone squaring off as the villain against John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara as the feisty ex-wife. What more could you ask for? I will say, I could not stand Christopher Mitchum's acting, I just found his acting extremely irritating. And who could forget Dog? Reminded me very much of the dog in Hondo.

All that said, obviously the ending was quite abrupt. Dog and John Wayne's Indian friend's deaths were not acknowledged nor was a burial even mentioned. You didn't see the grandson reunite with Maureen O'Hara and the father (and the father was pretty touch and go so we didn't really get confirmation on whether he lived or not).

I don't feel like that was the actual final scene of the movie. I feel what we saw as the end was a scene when they reunited and were happy to be alive. I truly believe more scenes were filmed, especially at the ranch with Maureen and the kid's father, and the scenes ended up being cut.

Then I came on here and it seems my thoughts are confirmed. It turns out (for whatever bizarre reason) that lots of Maureen's scenes were cut and that the studio demanded a shorter movie. I think with those demands, the original scenes that were to end the movie were cut for length, and we ended up with the abrupt ending, which like I said I think was only a celebration and relief that they were alive but then I do think Dog and the Indian friend's deaths were acknowledged and the final scenes happened at the ranch with Maureen.

I am not going to take away from my rating of this otherwise great movie because the people at the studio were asshats and demanded a shorter film which forced such an abrupt ending.

Thoughts?