on the morning after the killing of Crumb, if you weren't trying to obliterate some one's tracks."
"That's just what I was trying to do," said Shannon. "Ever since Custer taught me something about tracking, it has held a certain fascination for me, so that I often try to interpret the tracks I see along the trails in the hills. It was because of this, I suppose, that I immediately recognized the Apache's tracks around the body of Crumb. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that Custer had killed him, and I did what I could to remove this evidence. As it turned out, my efforts did more harm than good, until Allen's explanation cleared up the matter.
"And why," asked the colonel, "did Allen undergo this sudden change of heart?"
Shannon turned toward him, her face slightly flushed, though she looked him straight in the eyes as she spoke.
"It is a hard thing for me to tell you," she said. "Allen is a bad man—a very bad man; yet in the worst of men there is a spark of good. Allen told me this morning, in the district attorney's office, what it was that had kindled to life the spark of good in him. He is my father."
THE END
