Preceding The Moccasin Telegraph were Dance Me Outside (1977), Scars (1978), and Born Indian (1981), all short story collections with Silas Ermineskin as narrator. Also figuring prominently in these stories are Silas's friends — Frank Fencepost, Bedelia Coyote, Sadie One-wound, Mad Etta, and other residents of Hobbema Reserve in Alberta, Canada. The conflicts between the white and red world continue, and the results are either comic or tragic. As with The Moccasin Telegraph these earlier stories are entertaining and reveal rather than preach about the world's injustices and absurdities.