Consider Her Ways by Frederick Philip Grove

Bissa-tee and myself had been struggling along for months and months, going roughly in a south-west direction. So long as we were north of the range of the Ecitons, we travelled in daytime, resting at night in any hollow that offered, mostly in the cracks of the bark of certain trees. We suffered as we had never suffered before, from hunger, from exhaustion, from that depression which I now recognized as arising from the fact that we were alone. This may sound strange; the point is that the responsibility for others and the very magnitude of the task which had so far been ahead of us had, during the first five or six years of the expedition, distracted our thoughts from ourselves. A whole compound organism had been functioning; and we had been part of that organism. It had carried us along. Now that organism had disappeared; the task, apart from reporting our results, had been accomplished or abandoned. Perhaps both of us felt that we were entitled to our rest; both of us resented the fact that we had to go on struggling in order to get home before we could rest; and, worst of all, each of us resented any delay that became necessary, not as a new misfortune opposing us, but as the fault of the other.

Thus, one evening, we came to a stream which, at any earlier date, we should have promptly crossed, for it was shallow and all but bridged by stones. I was the first to arrive; and had I been leading any considerable number of my associates, I should have gone on and crossed at once. As it was, I waited for my companion; but during that wait my joints stiffened; for the day's work that lay behind me had been enormous. By the time Bissa-tee joined me, I was moving about painfully. She recommended a rest, speaking sharply, as though she noticed my condition only now, and with alarm; there was another hour of daylight left. I, thinking chiefly of her--for she had lost considerably more weight than I-- acquiesced; I was willing enough not to exert myself; and I will admit I dropped without replying. This was bad; I had more than once reflected upon the desirability, if not the absolute necessity, of observing the strictest forms of politeness all the more punctiliously when any discourtesy on my part was apt to be interpreted as pointing directly against the only companion I had left. I saw Bissa-tee darkening. But, instead of feeling compunction on account of my rudeness, I resented the interpretation she put upon my silence. Any over-exertion which is continuously repeated has this demoralizing effect. Half an hour later I felt suddenly as though it were absolutely necessary to cross the brook at once; and, gathering every remaining ounce of my strength, I rose and signified as much. But by this time Bissa-tee had reached that state of stiffness in which I had been when she arrived. She groaned as she rose; seeing which, I scented somewhat impatiently that we might as well stay for the night. She was obstinate now and painfully moved on to the ford. From the way she moved I concluded that she would never be able to take those desperate leaps from stone to stone which were required. I, using the scent of supreme command, gave the order to postpone the crossing to the next day, impersonally, as though the order were addressed to an army; and simultaneously I turned to search for a hollow suitable to spend the night in. Bissa-tee had hesitated; then, I having meanwhile found a place, she followed me resentfully. Neither of us gave a scent. We did not even wish each other good-night. There being nothing to eat, we dropped and were instantly asleep.