He worked odd jobs around the Sulphur Springs Valley in south-central Arizona, cowboying when he could, laboring when that was what was available. He was illiterate and unable to sign his own name. He had learned both blacksmithing and wheelwrighting in the army, and he could often find work doing those jobs on a ranch or in a livery. He was a good farrier, but he lacked the initiative to do it on his own. He did not like being in the position of having to make decisions. Decisions tormented him. How someone could make a decision, not already knowing the outcome but somehow projecting out into the future, baffled Sisson. When he made a decision, it was usually wrong, so he tried his best not to make one. What he liked was being told what to do. In 1915 he was working in Aravaipa Canyon, finishing up some chores for a rancher there, when he ran into Jeff Power, who was rounding up a crew to build a road from the southern entrance to Rattlesnake Canyon and up into Kielberg Canyon, where he had a mine.

Sisson met Jeff Power a couple of times then as Power crisscrossed the Aravaipa Canyon area, picking up what able bodies no one else seemed to have a use for. He was like a junk collector, looking at the same jetsam four or five times, discarding it each time but the last, figuring it just had to be good for something. The younger men wanted nothing to do with Jeff Power. He was rough and acerbic, and he had the look of a man who examined another man just to see how best to cheat him. Almost worst of all, he loved to tell other people what to do. Sisson liked him immediately and signed on.

It took nearly two years to dig and scrape, cut and blast a road up Rattlesnake Canyon, which is often narrow and steep, so that the road had to cut back and forth across the creek several times. Much of the work done one year would be wiped out by the thaw and spring rains of the following year. Workers came and went, but Sisson stayed on. He never wanted to be the boss of a crew. He was well busted up, but he worked harder than most of the others and could tend to the stock—horses, mules, and donkeys—better than the Powers could. He never asked for more money. Jeff Power loved him.

As he saddled the horses and mule, he packed the items they would need, taking from the supplies in the cabin and mine. He took all the blankets and all the food from the cabin. A trip south, which was the logical choice, would take weeks, and there were few chances to reprovision along the route.