Riders in the night...impromptu "trials"...corpses dangling from cottonwood trees and makeshift scaffolds...

When the outlaws called themselves "Innocents," and their leader masqueraded as the respected sheriff...

Before formal law enforcement arrived on Montana's gold frontier, a few good men tried to restore order themselves.  At first they succeeded, but then they went too far.

Here is on insider's version of the story.

"Langford's telling of the 1862-1866 Montana Vigilante story is particularly important because the author was a player.

Some Vigilante historians identify Langford as one of the seventeen members of the pivotal Executive Committee.  Regardless, he saw the group's activities from the inside, and he knew many of the protagonists intimately...Langford...is a blatant apologist for the Vigilantes' extra-legal actions.

Vigilante Days & Ways offers a generous portion of flowery, ofter melodramatic Victorian prose.  This characteristic should be relished rather than disdained - particularly in the book's conversational passages.  Langford wrote in the style of his age, and that style fits comfortably Vigilante activities in Montana Territory in the 1860s.

Author: Nathaniel P. Langford

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