Looking at "the best reading order" on this site, I think "Booty for a Badman" is out of order. I think it should actually precede "The Courting of Griselda".
"Booty..." reads like an intro to Tell Sackett. In “Badman”, we learn that Tell left home at 14. At 15, he joined the Union Army and fought at Shiloh in 1862. He was captured by the Confederates and, later, freed in a prisoner exchange. He spent the next four years fighting the Sioux in the Dakotas. At 19, he headed west to Arizona to try gold prospecting and came up empty. He was recruited to deliver 50 pounds of gold for other miners which he did. This would have been around 1866. He was paid $100 for carrying the gold.
“The Courting of Griselda” probably follows “Booty…” because Tell does not mention any previous experience gold mining in “Booty..”. Also, at the end of “The Courting of Griselda”, he had hit pay dirt which would not place this before "Booty...".
After “The Courting…” and by around 1870, he made his way to Utah where he showed up in “Dark Canyon”. Apparently, his gold strike in Arizona did not make him rich. He probably sold his claim in order to move on. He did not stay long in Utah before heading back east to Texas.
Around late 1870, a Sackett passing through Texas told some small-time ranchers about a “green valley” out west. (Probably Tell.) They were inspired to head west and, in 1871, they met up with Otis Tom Chancy in “Chancy” who was a distant relative of the Sacketts.
In “Sackett”, Tell left Texas after a shootout with a man named Bigelow who he caught cheating at cards. At this point in 1873, he would have been about 25 or 26 years of age which would have been about 6 or 7 years after he headed west to gold prospect.
And, the rest is in the Sackett novels up through about 1879 at which point I estimate he would have been about 32 years of age.
