The subject of this autobiography has traveled to many out of the way places and accomplished many remarkable things, but the most astonishing thing about him is the casual and unaffected way in which he, in retrospect, views his extraordinarily active life. He talks to me as unconcernedly of tramping hundreds of miles across a barren desert peopled with hostile Indians as though it were merely a street-car trip up the thoroughfares of one of Arizona's progressive cities. He talks of desperate rides through a wild and dangerous country, of little scraps, as he terms them, with bands of murderous Apaches, of meteoric rises from hired hand to ranch foreman, of adventurous expeditions into the realm of trade when everything was a risk in a land of uncertainty, of journeys through a foreign and wild country "dead broke"--of these and many similar things, as though they were commonplace incidents scarcely worthy of mention. Yet the story of Cady's life is, I venture to state, one of the most gripping and interesting ever told, both from an historical and from a human point of view. It illustrates vividly the varied fortunes encountered by an adventurous pioneer of the old days in Arizona and contains, besides, historical facts not before recorded that cannot help making the work of unfailing interest to all who know, or wish to know, the State. For you, then, reader, who love or wish to know the State of Arizona, with its painted deserts, its glorious skies, its wonderful mountains, its magical horizons, its illimitable distances, its romantic past and its magnificent possibilities, this little book has been written. BASIL DILLON WOON. CONTENTS PAGE THE BOY SOLDIER 13 FOLLOWING THE ARGONAUTS 17 ROUGH AND TUMBLE ON LAND AND SEA 37 THROUGH MEXICO AND BACK TO ARIZONA 50 STAGE DRIVER'S LUCK 61 A FRONTIER BUSINESS MAN 71 VENTURES AND ADVENTURES 80 INDIAN WARFARE 92 DEPUTY SHERIFF, CATTLEMAN AND FARMER 102 IN AGE THE CRICKET CHIRPS AND BRINGS-- 115 ILLUSTRATIONS JOHN H. CADY Frontispiece OLD BARRACKS IN TUCSON 20 RUINS OF FORT BUCHANAN 28 CADY'S HOUSE ON THE SONOITA 44 RUINS OF FORT CRITTENDEN 60 THE OLD WARD HOMESTEAD 76 SHEEP CAMP ON THE SONOITA 92 CADY AND HIS FAMILY 108 ARIZONA'S YESTERDAY THE BOY SOLDIER "_For the right that needs assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that they could do._"