The night Noctis left, Russell had returned from his hunt taken a shower and gone to bed. Though he didn't sleep much that night. He couldn't get the unhappy weredragon out of his mind. Sometime during the night, he heard Noctis sneak out. The sound of him trying to start the car was loud. Russ had thought to get up and haul him back in, then changed his mind. Perhaps letting him run a bit would change things the weredragon's attitude.
The next morning, Russell rose and went out, Noctis' trail was easy to find. It would have been obvious to a human hunter, let alone Russell's enhanced senses. For a while, he trailed the errant slave, well back so that Noctis wouldn't hear or see him. The poor city boy was very lost.
Watching from a distance, he decided he would wait until the kid became desperate to rescue him. Russ, on the other hand, was well versed in surviving in the wild.
On the morning of Noctis' third day in the wilds, Russell watched him from a distance. The kid was walking in a wide circle. Shifted, he tracked the circumference of the circle and got a couple miles ahead of him. He shifted back and settled on a fallen log and waited for Noctis to come his way.