for woodchucks, which he still carried on with abated zeal for lack of
his company when the painter sat down to sketch certain bits that struck
him. When he found that Westover cared for nothing in the way of sport,
as people commonly understand it, he did not openly contemn him. He
helped him get the flowers he studied, and he learned to know true
mushrooms from him, though he did not follow his teaching in eating the
toadstools, as his mother called them, when they brought them home to be
cooked.

If it could not be said that he shared the affection which began to grow
up in Westover from their companionship, there could be no doubt of the
interest he took in him, though it often seemed the same critical
curiosity which appeared in the eye of his dog when it dwelt upon the
painter. Fox had divined in his way that Westover was not only not to be
molested, but was to be respectfully tolerated, yet no gleam of kindness
ever lighted up his face at sight of the painter; he never wagged his
tail in recognition of him; he simply recognized him and no more, and he
remained passive under Westover's advances, which he had the effect of
covertly referring to Jeff, when the boy was by, for his approval or
disapproval; when he was not by, the dog's manner implied a reservation
of opinion until the facts could be submitted to his master.

On the Saturday morning which was the last they were to have together,
the three comrades had strayed from the vague wood road along one of the
unexpected levels on the mountain slopes, and had come to a standstill in
a place which the boy pretended not to know his way out of. Westover
doubted him, for he had found that Jeff liked to give himself credit for
woodcraft by discovering an escape from the depths of trackless
wildernesses.