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.