Beau, thank you for your response.

As for “Lonely on the Mountain”, I think the story was set when both Riel and Ft Garry would have been there. It would have been after the First Resistance and before the Second Resistance when Riel was hanged in 1885. It would have also been before the military began to demolish Ft Garry in 1881. “Lonely on the Mountain” could not take place before Riel’s First Resistance because it took place from 1869 to 1870 which would be well before Tell could be there. It could not be after 1881 because Historical records indicate Ft Garry was demolished between 1881 and 1884. So, Riel would have been around between 1870 and 1880. And, Ft Garry would have been around until 1881. They could fit together when I think the story takes place in 1879 or 1880.

My impression of the Sackett stories is that they all fit neatly into the “generic western period” you refer to. Tell’s short stories begin shortly after 1865 and right after the Civil War. I estimate they ended with “Lonely on the Mountain” which I think was set around 1879 or 1880. That would mean your dad squeezed a lot of action into a 15 year window.

As for the overlap problem, my impression is that there is not much, if any, overlap in the stories he completed. They fit pretty neatly in a sequence. The only overlap I see are stories that involved different characters in different locations at the same time. It looks like he managed to avoid having any character in two places at once.

As for digging into the details, when you are retired and have time on your hands, digging into details can in itself be entertaining and speculating on a chronology can be entertaining. Indeed, there appears to be such interest in a chronology that one is included as a recommended sequence on this website and for Bantam to have included a chronology in “The Sackett Companion”. It’s just that, when I look at the one in TSC, I come away with the opinion (and it’s just my opinion) that very little thought was given to it and that it appears that whoever put it together had not really taken or been given the time to give it any real thought. Maybe they were under pressure to meet some publishing deadline. The reason I say this is that they give circa periods when your dad gave very specific years for several stories. Then, TSC throws nine novels under a generic period of circa 1875 to 1879 in a weird order. One of these is “The Sackett Brand” which your dad very specifically wrote to start on April 25, 1877 which was the date that he had Ange murdered. This book is listed next to last in this list. At least five of the novels listed in the 1875 to 1879 period took place after the events in “The Sackett Brand” in 1877. The list is just sort of disappointing.

You also mention that the first few Sackett stories were set in time but that your dad quit calling attention to it. He may have done so because a character calling attention to it in every book would have become too predictable and boring which your dad was not. Instead, it looks like he used other means like referring to a date on a grave stone or referring to a specific historic event like the year that Wild Bill Hickock was marshal of Abilene or referring to prior events in other books where he had established a date. I think he kept prior events in mind because there were some stories that likely would have all appeared to take place in the same year but never overlapped because of references to events in the prior stories that kept them in a specific order.

I really did try to keep it short.

Justintime