Page:Saga of Billy the Kid.djvu/18

Texas was then a republic and remained a republic until 1843, when it joined the Union. Its war for independence had been won only the year before. Santa Ana and his Mexican army, crushed at San Jacinto, had with drawn across the Rio Grande for ever, and the new and exultant nation was still ringing with the decisive victory of brave old Sam Houston and with the heroism of Crockett, Travis, Bowie, and the other martyrs to Texas liberty, who had fallen at the Alamo.

Here, on the frontier, John Chisum grew to manhood. If one thing distinguished him in his early years above another it was sound business sense, the ability to estimate clearly the possibilities of the future in the opportunities of to-day, the quality known as vision. While other young men were following their noses, he was following a definite policy of success. While they were dancing, he was marching steadily forward. While they were shooting at a mark for fun, he was shooting at the future in deadly earnest.

Settlers were beginning to pour in. There was plenty of land for all to be had for a song. There would be plenty of land for years. But there would come a time in the future when land would be valuable. So young Chisum acquired land. He laid out the site of Paris on his land. He helped build the first house in this city of the future. He watched the town grow, and as it grew, he grew in wealth. He became a contractor and builder. He built the first courthouse in Paris. In this work, the genius of the man found first expression. He was, by all that was in him, a builder—a town builder first, a state builder later on in New Mexico, and eventually, in his relation to the Southwest and the nation, an empire builder.