The author of this book has been for some years and still is the editor of "The Missoulian," the leading daily newspaper of the Bitter Root Valley in Montana. From personal experiences and acquaintances he gradually accumulated the material for a series of articles entitled Old Trails, or Trail Stories, which appeared in the Sunday editions of his paper during the years 1911 and 1912. These articles, written in free newspaper style and without claim for historical accuracy, have now been gathered together in book form and published by Prof. Elrod of the University of Montana, this at the request of numerous residents of Western Montana, who recognized the value of the contributions and the wisdom of preserving them. In his foreword the author frankly states his reluctance to grant the request and the unworthiness of the material for book form, but has wisely refrained from any revision or amplification. Mr. Stone has made good use of his acquaintance with localities and men and events prominent in the exploration and settlement and growth of Western Montana, and his book furnishes the reader with a glimpse of the wealth of historic material to be had for the digging in that comparatively new state. It has not been appreciated by many that in point of time the Indian trade near the head waters of Clark Fork of the Columbia antedated that at Astoria, and that the railroads traversing Montana follow for miles the lines of travel early in use by explorer, fur trader, missionary, prospector and immigrant. Many tracks of these various periods of pioneering have been actually traveled by Mr. Stone, in some instances with the very men who had used them during the fifties and sixties; of others he has learned from the lips of those yet living to tell the story, and of others he has read the authoritative sources. With Dr. Elliott Coues he personally followed the trail of Lewis and Clark through the Bitter Root Valley, with Judge Woody (a Montana pioneer of 1857 who contributed to this Quarterly in No. 4 of Vol. 3) he climbed Gibson Pass, the main range of the Rockies, with Duncan McDonald, who was born on the Salish reservation in 1849, he has traveled along the Jocko, and of the deeds of the Vigilantes he had the facts from the very men who took active part in that movement.