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livestock breeders lay in the boundless, unfenced pastures. Irrigation projects promised wealth to investors. It was a country of many-sided opportunity lying practically uncultivated. If New Mexico was to build for the future and take advantage of the immense westward movement of home-seekers it was vitally necessary that it first clean house. If this potentially rich territory was to share in the prosperity of the new day that was dawning in the West, the desperado must be exterminated and lawlessness suppressed.

John Chisum had the future of New Mexico at heart and recognized the crisis. If law and order were to be established, a war was necessary. Chisum launched that war. It was a war primarily against lawlessness. Incidentally it was a war against Billy the Kid as the head and front of lawless forces. The extinction of the outlaw was imperative. The new era demanded it. The call of statehood was the desperado's trump of doom.

Pat Garrett had moved to Roswell. John Chisum, J. C. Lea, and other cattlemen, casting about for a man they deemed qualified to conduct the war against lawlessness, selected him. They urged him to run for sheriff of Lincoln County. They promised his election. In making him the offer they laid their cards on the table. The position was to carry one positive obligation—the extermination of Billy the Kid. Garrett had been a friend of Billy the Kid. So had Chisum. That made no difference. This was to be a fight for New Mexico. Sentimental considerations must be waved aside. Friendships must be forgotten. The work called for a man of shrewdness, courage, determination, and force of character. Garrett was that kind of man. He accepted the proposition, was nominated and elected.