Far away to the North, where the great rocky capes point out through the sea toward the land where it is always snow and ice, there lived two shepherds whose little huts were almost the only habitations in many and many a mile of trackless forest. To be sure, they were within traveling distance of a market town. For had there been no place for trading the wonderful white wool which they sheared every spring from their sheep, there would have been no object in their living in a place so uncouth where year in and year out there were only the grandeurs of earth and sky and the thunderous roar of the seas to keep them company.
But the shepherds and their families were not unhappy, and the chances are that if you took them southward over sea and land to the great cities they would only have longed to go back to their own cloudy skies, to their wind-swept pastures, and the steep cliffs where the sea-gulls nest. And it is certainly true that their little boys and girls would never have been content to have stayed away very long from the faithful dogs, who are the most important members in a shepherd home. And it is of these dogs and what they did to the last of the wolves that the shepherds were always telling. For the memory of a brave act is slow to die; and when you add sagacity to bravery, putting wits with strength, you have something which men love to relate.
One of the dogs was Dan, and that was a suitable name, for he was what his master called "long-headed." The other was Denmark, for he was so great and powerful and possessed of so wonderful a voice and appetite, that both by power and dignity he resembled his people, the noble Danes, and no name in the world could fit him better than that of his native land.
Denmark had come to this far-away settlement when a ship from the Danish ports had gone to pieces in a storm below the cliffs. And the shepherds had taken him home. A dog that could swim ashore in such a storm as that had been, when the waves turned to ice as they dashed against the rocks, was a dog worth keeping.
But Denmark was not a shepherd dog. His shiny coat of black, his heavy build, with a neck as powerful as a young bull's, and his great square jaws made him at first sight a dog to be feared. But he was gentle and wanted to play and sport like any puppy, as soon as he had recovered from the shock of shipwreck and his icy hour in the water. But there was no one to play with in the family of the fisherman who had first rescued him from the water. And that worthy man, who was a brave and silent sort, was gone from home so long at a time that he was not sorry when the great Dane betook himself to another home.
Some children were passing the fisherman's hut one morning in early spring, on their way to gather wild flowers which grew in the crevices and little sheltered nooks of the headlands. They were laughing and chasing one another and singing. That was all the great dog wanted to hear, for he had lived a solemn and uneventful life during these weeks that he had lain around the fisherman's place. And the fisherman had not dreamed of entertaining his guest. He had not played tag in sixty years and you may be sure he was not going to begin again for the sake of a great overgrown dog.
Denmark introduced himself to the children in what he thought was a playful way; but his voice was so terrible that the children were at first terror-stricken. They had never seen any dogs except the beautiful Scottish kind which the shepherds keep. They screamed and ran in fear, taking up stones as if to throw them. But Denmark was not discouraged. At first he kept his distance, but he followed; and, once they were out on the green pastures that sloped and curved down to the steep shore, he began his most enticing efforts to please.
The children forgot all about their wild flowers then, and they romped and played for hours with the dog. Of course they took him home.
In this new home Denmark was a neighbor of Dan, the wise shepherd dog, who came to be his lifelong friend; for the shepherds did not live very far apart, and it was easy for the dogs to get together, as they always did at odd times of night and very early in the morning, when they would go far afield in a mad chase for rabbits or on the trail of a fox.
Every one had thought the two would fight when they met, but the shepherd dog only stood off on his dignity a few seconds, and then he spoke to the great Dane in the most courteous tones, which the Scotch can always employ to such effect. He well knew that he was no match for the gigantic stranger and he saw no necessity for making a fool of himself; besides he really was more than glad to find such a companion.
The comradeship of these two lasted long and only came near to its end when they cornered the great timber wolf in the sheep pen. This was Dan's crowning achievement, and no one was more proud of him than was the brave and courteous Denmark, who always gave to the shepherd dog the full credit of having planned the whole thing. To rid the countryside of this last wolf had been Dan's great desire. No one but he was really sure of the wolf's existence. The time had passed when the terrible packs of wolves descended on the sheep, and when the belated traveler over the snowy roads was in peril of his life from these stalking, famished enemies. But the shepherds were by no means sure that the wolves were entirely gone, and when they sat by the fireside telling stories of the dangers and hardships of the old days, they would always end by admitting that not yet were the terrible marauders hunted down.
Dan's back would bristle as he lay by the fire, and he would pound his tail up and down on the hearth as if he entirely agreed. Could he have spoken, he would have told them that often he had smelt the track of something that was not a bear nor a fox. Then his blood would freeze in his veins when the shepherds, talking in their slow way between sips of ale, told how powerful and ferocious the wolf can be. They knew of wolves that had snapped a dog's head nearly clean off the body with just one flash of their terrible jaws. And they agreed that a wolf could not be overpowered by any dog alone.
Dan always came to one conclusion in these recitals. If ever he could find the wolf, and could employ his friend Denmark to help him, they would show their masters that two dogs, at any rate, could get the best of the timber wolf.
It came about at last that a long, heavy winter drove the wolf to bolder and more risky operations among the sheepfolds. He ventured from the dark, forest lairs closer and closer to the sheep pens and the shepherd huts. The dogs knew this. But in the daytime the wolf was gone far beyond the barriers of the steep cliffs of the mountains. And at night the dogs could never venture far afield, for it was their duty to stay close by the barns and the pens where the sheep were sheltered.
With the coming of spring, Dan's master had to spend many a night at a pen some distance from the home. Down close to the shore he kept another flock and in it were many little lambs that were sick. For in the spring it is a common thing for the lambs that are winter-born to be stricken with a sickness which only the best shepherds can cure. Dan's master was up and about at all hours of the night, and poor Dan was greatly concerned in his efforts to keep guard over two folds. But if his dear master would take no sleep, Dan would take none. He was as wakeful and anxious as though he owned the sick lambs himself.
It was well past midnight and the air was full of the wet odors which denote the melting snows and the first coming of spring. As Dan was trotting up the path from the lower fold, a whiff of that strange and terrible odor which he knew to be the scent of the wolf, came to his sensitive nostrils. He stood still. He snuffed the ground around him, but he found no track. The wolf was near, but where?
Then a thought came to him. First, he must get Denmark. It would take him but a few moments to run across to the neighboring farm, and now was the time to put his plan into execution. He was much disturbed in his mind, however, for he had never before left his master at night. But the necessity was a pressing one.
Down the path and across the fields he ran, and came to Denmark's home. The great dog was lying by the barn door, under a little shelter which formed a kennel. He was wide awake and felt very much alert. He confessed to Dan that he felt particularly nervous about something. Yes, he was sure he could scent the wolf on the stagnant, heavy air.
Back they ran, their tails lowered, and their noses to the ground, for this was no hour to play. Once they were in sight of the hut where the shepherd and the little lambs were housed, Dan explained his plan.
"My master will presently go into that tiny room just beyond the pen where the ewes and the sick lambs are. He will lie down, and unless the lambs bleat again before morning, he will not wake up, for he is dead tired. He knows that I am close and on guard, and so he does not trouble himself about that shaky old door to the fold. The wolf could nose it open and not half try. But the wolf won't come here unless he thinks I am watching up at the big pen. So I shall go up there. You climb the steep steps that lead to the loft over the straw beds where the sick lambs are. Go softly, and wait. I will follow the wolf down here if he comes. And if he gets inside the pen, you spring down on him from the loft."
All this the canny shepherd dog had schemed and perfected as he was running after his friend. It was too good to be true, he felt, that here at last was the chance he had hoped for. And if he had ever feared the wolf, he did not fear him now, but was only afraid that the terrible creature would not appear.
Dan hid beneath his master's barn. From a corner in the heavy stone underpinning he could look down the yard to the lower pen. Nothing could approach that point without his seeing it, unless it came from the rocky shore. He waited long and the silence was unbroken save for the dripping of the water where the snow was melting on the barn roof and little rills of it spattered from the eaves.
Suddenly, so suddenly that his heart stood still, he saw two great yellow eyes staring out of the darkness. The wolf was in the yard and not ten feet from where Dan lay! Then the gleaming eyes turned and a great shadowy form hulked past. It was so huge that Dan trembled. It made no noise and moved slowly and with great caution.
Dan straightened himself out, full length, and crawled low in the mud, picking his foothold in such a way as to let no twig or pebble move under his weight. Any smallest noise would be fatal. His heart beat so fast that he could not breathe, but he stalked the terrible shadow step by step.
Suddenly he realized that if the wolf should turn, there would be no chance to escape. Perhaps the great jaws would kill him before he could even cry out, and Denmark would never know about it until too late.
The wolf's half-defined form suddenly vanished. He had made a great, silent spring into the center of the sheep pen. For such was the surpassing cunning of the wolf that he was into the pen and had seized one of the lambs all in a single leap.
There was a roar such as Dan had never heard. For Denmark had never spoken in such voice before. Then came sounds that woke up every one on the two farms and brought everybody running to the scene with lanterns and guns.
Denmark had come down on the wolf's back, and had gripped his throat. Dan rushed in and helped in pulling him down. But the damage to the dogs was frightful, for the terrible fangs of the wolf, hampered as the creature was, had ripped and torn his opponents. The three desperate animals rolled and tossed and flung themselves in such a frantic battle that the shepherd was many times thrown down in his attempts to get near them. He was afraid that he would stab the dogs instead of the wolf. But when the lights came, and the guns were pointed, there was no need of either knives or shot. The two dogs lay bleeding on the floor of the hut and the great timber wolf was twitching in death.
It was the greatest thing that the shepherds had ever heard of in their lives. They told of it for years, and Dan and Denmark became known for miles and were justly happy in their fame.