Few of the great overland highways of America have known such a wealth of color and romance as that which surrounded the Santa Fé Trail. For over four centuries the dust-gray and muddy-red trail felt the moccasined tread of Comanches, Apaches, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes. These soft footfalls were replaced by the bold harsh clang of the armored conqueror, Coronado, and by a host of Spanish explorers and soldiers seeking the gold of fabled Quivira. Black and brown-robed priests, armed only with the cross, were followed in turn by bearded buckskin-clad fur traders and mountain men, by canny Indian traders, and lean, weather-beaten drovers with great herds of long-horned cattle. […] The story dictated in such vivid detail by Marian Sloan Russell is a unique and valuable eyewitness account by a sensitive, intelligent girl who grew to maturity on the kaleidoscopic Santa Fé Trail.
