“She wouldn’t be to Wild Bill Hickox,” said the Old Cattleman. “Thar is gents who ought never to wed, an’ Bill’s one. He was bound to be killed final; the game law was out on Bill for years. Now when a gent is shore to cash in that a-way, why should he go roundin’ up a wife? Thar oughter be a act of congress ag’in it, an’ I onderstand that some sech measure is to be introdooced.” “Passing laws,” remarked the Jolly Doctor, “is no such easy matter, now, as passing the bottle.” Here the Jolly Doctor looked meaningly at the Red Nosed Gentleman, who thereupon shoved the burgundy into the Jolly Doctor’s hand with all conceivable alacrity. Like every good drinker, the Red Nosed Gentleman loved a cup companion. “There was a western person,” went on the Jolly Doctor, “named Jim Britt, who came east to have a certain law passed; he didn’t find it flowers to his feet.” “What now was the deetails?” said the Old Cattleman. “The doin’s an’ plottin’s an’ doubleplays of them law-makin’ mavericks in congress is allers a heap thrillin’ to me.” “Very well,” responded the Jolly Doctor; “let each light a fresh cigar, for it’s rather a long story, and when all are comfortable, I’ll give you the history of ‘How Jim Britt Passed His Bill.’” CHAPTER XIII.--HOW JIM BRITT PASSED HIS BILL. Last Chance was a hamlet in southeastern Kansas. Last Chance, though fervid, was not large. Indeed, a cowboy in a spirit of insult born of a bicker with the town marshal had said he could throw the loop of his lariat about Last Chance and drag it from the map with his pony. However, this was hyperbole. Jim Britt was not the least conspicuous among the men of Last Chance. Withal, Jim Britt was much diffused throughout the commerce of that village and claimed interests in a dozen local establishments, from a lumber yard to a hotel. Spare of frame, and of an anxious predatory nose, was Jim Britt; and his gray eyes ever roving for a next investment; and the more novel the enterprise, the more leniently did Jim Britt regard it. The new had for him a fascination, since he was in way and heart an Alexander and hungered covetously for further worlds to conquer. Thus it befell that Jim Britt came naturally to his desire to build a railway when the exigencies of his affairs opened gate to the suggestion. Jim Britt became the proprietor of a lead mine--or was it zinc?--in southeastern Missouri, and no mighty distance from his own abode of Last Chance. The mine was somewhat thrust upon Jim Britt by Fate, since he accepted it for a bad debt. It was “lead mine or nothing,” and Jim Britt, whose instincts, like Nature, abhorred a vacuum, took the mine. It was a good mine, but a drawback lurked in the location; it lay over the Ozark Hills and far away from any nearest whistle of a railroad.