Far away to the North, where the great rocky capes¹ 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 sheared² every spring from their sheep, there would have been no object in their living in a place so uncouth³ 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 possessed⁴ 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 ashore⁵ 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 jaws⁶ 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 shipwreck⁷ 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 worthy⁸ 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 crevices⁹ 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 enticing¹⁰ efforts to please.
 
The children forgot all about their wild flowers then, and they romped¹¹ 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 spoke¹² to the great Dane in the most courteous¹³ tones, which the Scotch¹⁴ 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 descended¹⁵ on the sheep, and when the belated traveler over the snowy roads was in peril¹⁶ of his life from these stalking, famished¹⁷ enemies. But the shepherds were by no means sure that the wolves were entirely¹⁸ 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 bristle¹⁹ as he lay by the fire, and he would pound his tail up and down on the hearth²⁰ as if he entirely agreed. Could he have spoken, he would have told them that often he had smelt²¹ the track of something that was not a bear nor a fox. Then his blood would freeze in his veins²² when the shepherds, talking in their slow way between sips²³ of ale, told how powerful and ferocious²⁴ the wolf can be. They knew of wolves t............