“If you've got money enough. You said you'd know him. How?”
“I'd know him!” she answered eagerly. “The last quarrel we had was about a mark on his neck. He wuz a spunky little one. You couldn't make him cry. His devil of a daddy used to stick pins in him and laugh because he wouldn't cry. The last dirty trick he tried was what ended it all. He pushed a live cigar agin his little neck until I smelled it burnin' in the next room. I knocked him down with a chair, drove him from the house and told him I'd kill him if he ever put his foot inside the door agin. He stole my boy the next night—but he'll carry that scar to his grave.”
“You'd love this boy now if you found him in New York as bad as his father ever was?” Jim asked with a curious smile.
“Yes—he's mine!” was the quick, firm answer.
Jim watched her intently.
“I looked Death in the face for him,” she went on fiercely. “I'd dive to the bottom o' hell to find him if I knowed he wuz thar—— But what's the use to talk; that devil killed him! I've waked up many a night stranglin' with a dream when I seed the drunken brute burnin' an' beatin' an' torturin' him to death. The feller you've heard about ain't him. 'Tain't no use to make me hope an' then kill me——”
“He's not dead, I tell you. I know.”
Jim's voice rang with conviction so positive the old woman's breath came in quick gasps and she smiled through her eager tears.
“And I MIGHT find him?”
“IF you've got money enough! Money can do anything in this world.”