Anne. He had been sent for during
the night to administer extreme unction to a dying half-breed girl
thirteen miles away. Hitching his dogs to their sled he sped on,
but too late, for he was met on the trail by the girl's relatives,
bringing her dead body wrapped in a buffalo skin, and which
they asked him to take back with him and place in his chapel
pending service. He tremblingly assented, and the body was
duly tied to his sled, the relatives returning to their homes.
He was alone with the corpse in the dense and dark forest, and
felt the old dread, but reflecting on his office and its duties,
he ran for a long distance behind the sled until, thoroughly
tired, he stepped on it to rest. In doing this he slipped and
fell upon the corpse in a spasm of fear, which, strange to say,
when he recovered from it, he felt no more. The shock cured him,
and, reaching home, he placed the girl's body in the chapel
with his own hands. It reminded him, he said, of a Community
at Marseilles whose Superior had died, but whose money was
missing. The new Superior sent a young priest who had a great
dread of ghosts down to the crypt below the church to open the
coffin and search the pockets of the dead. He did so, and found
the money; but in nailing on the coffin lid again, a part of
his soutane was fastened down with it. The priest turned to go,
advanced a step, and, being suddenly held, dropped dead with
fright.
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