Rising Sun Valley and the profit will outweigh the cost

Eager to get a move on and (potentially) get a meal, Riordan gave a quick nod of his noggin when the stranger agreed to the terms. They would be hunting fox and not something more meaty, but whatever. Food was food - and if they got rid of the foxes, maybe better prey would resurface in the future. In a way, this benefited Riordan more than Mordecai; at least, if he were to stick to his guns and remain a lone wolf.

"Aye, then we'll get goin' this way," the young man happily commented as he led the way. The two of them weren't far from the pile of rocks he had scouted earlier, and so they headed upriver towards it. Before reaching the strange monument though, Riordan veered the path away from the river entirely - towards a copse of trees where he had first found the scents of fox. 

He paused before continuing - in part out of an instinctual urge to consider his surroundings, and in part to gather his wits. The stranger behind him didn't seem like a shady individual, but he had been tricked before. The scent of fox was pungent and it would mask the scent of wolf easily enough; for all Rio knew, the other wolf was using this tactic against him. He wanted to trust Mordecai though, and was briefly conflicted.

"Up ahead there's a burrow of some kind. It might have been a den," maybe for a badger, or something larger like a wolf, he couldn't really tell in his first passing, "but it must'a caved in sometime. I found most of the foxy smells there," along with some fur, and some bone. They had probably whelped here in the abandoned den, which meant there was a young litter around here somewhere.