Every Man for Himself

by Herbert Joseph Moorhouse

The night blackened. The heavens seemed to draw down upon her and fantastic ghost creatures of her disordered fancy crept hungrily in. The warm air hung heavy and still between the flanking forest walls and she might have been lost in some unreal world but for the rough insistence of the roadbed through the thin soles of her shoes.

She stopped. A loud rustle of the bushes a few feet away in the dark set her pulses beating foolishly. Some animal was there, she knew, and breaking into a run, she fled from the spot, halting only when her breath gave out. She found herself walking rapidly, agitated and alert, shuddering with a nameless fear that was getting on her nerves. She caught herself looking over her shoulder, haunted by the idea that she was being followed. There seemed to be stealthy, padded footfalls behind her in the enveloping darkness and numberless eyes that peered as she passed—small, glowing dots in pairs, close together, that were gone when she looked a second time. Was it only imagination or were the soft steps behind her increasing in number? She recalled stories of wolf packs that had tracked down human beings and had torn them to pieces! She stood still and listened. But there was nothing—nothing but blackness and infinite silence.

Very sharply she took herself to task. She must not become nonsensical like this. There had been noises in the underbrush the other night when she and he—"Rabbits," he had said. And who ever heard tell of a rabbit attacking a person? They were given big ears to hear well, so that they could use their long legs for running away from everything. The idea of her being afraid of a rabbit!

She laughed nervously. If only she had a revolver or some weapon. Off the track she was in an instant, groping about in the ballasting for a large stone. She found two and walked on more confidently, carrying one in each hand.

A fine drizzle began to fall intermittently. She hoped it would not rain hard, though after all, what difference did it make whether it did or not? She would be wet through anyway by the time she got there.

How much longer would that be? She must have come quite a distance now, and the thought cheered her. The ankle was beginning to give an occasional twinge and growing a little weak; in fact, it was feeling rather numb. Nothing to be alarmed about, she told herself. What else could she expect? It was sure to be hurting before she reached her destination.

Something struck her knee and she found that it was one of the doughnuts. She went on, munching the food she had brought along. The doughnuts were very dry. The cheese was hard, too; but it was old cheese that nipped the tongue, the kind she liked.

Time dragged. The girl plodded on painfully. There was no use in trying any longer to deceive herself into the belief that the injured ankle was holding out; it was not! She was hobbling now, as she had done the other night; but there was no strong arm to lean on now.

She would get there all right. That station could not be so very much farther on and she simply had to succeed. It was not that the "story" would be a feather in her own cap, nor yet was it the success of her paper which was at stake; not even the restoration of her father to his place in the financial world—not even that was the main result that hung in the balance. But the prevention of a great wrong, the meting out of rogues' deserts, the saving from suffering of the "every-day" people, thousands of them, to whom life meant little more than a grind for bread—these were the things that mattered; for chiefly upon these poor people whose all was entrusted to the keeping of the Interprovincial Loan and Savings would fall the disaster of the company's failure if it were forced to close its doors because of a swindle of trust funds.

Faces began to float about in the darkness—faces of careworn clerks; of factory workers, lined and lean; child faces with great gaunt eyes; old men, old women—she MUST not fail!