Weston sat down at my side with his gun across his knees.
"Arnold Arker says there is a fox in that hollow," he answered. "You can hear the dogs now, and he thinks if they start him, this is as good a place as any, as he is likely to run over on Buzzard ridge, and double back this way, or he'll give us a sight of him as he breaks from the gully. Then as we went away, I looked back and saw you sitting here and I envied you, for yours is the most comfortable post in all the ridges."
"When you could be somewhere else, yes," said I. "Having to sit here, I should prefer running closer to the dogs."
"As you have to stay here, I'd rather sit with you, and after all what could be better?" Weston laughed. "You know, Mark, in all the valley you are the man I get along with best."
"Because I've never tried to find out why you were here."
"For that reason I told you," said he. "How simple it was, too. There was no cause for mystery."
"It would still be a mystery to Elmer Spiker, say. He can't conceive a man living in the country by choice."
"To Elmer Spiker—indeed, to most of the folks around here, the city is man's natural environment. It's just bad luck to be country-born."
"Exactly," said I.
Weston is a keen fellow. There was a quiet, cynical smile on his face as he sat there beating a tattoo on his leggings with a hickory twig.