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Armstrong Subero

Codeless Data Structures and

Algorithms
Learn DSA Without Writing a Single Line of Code
Armstrong Subero
Basse Terre, Moruga, Trinidad and Tobago

Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the

author in this book is available to readers on GitHub via the book’s
product page, located at www.​apress.​com/​9781484257241 . For more
detailed information, please visit www.​apress.​com/​source-code .

ISBN 978-1-4842-5724-1 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-5725-8

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5725-8

© Armstrong Subero 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the

Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned,
specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other
physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
methodology now known or hereafter developed.

Trademarked names, logos, and images may appear in this book. Rather
than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked
name, logo, or image we use the names, logos, and images only in an
editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no
intention of infringement of the trademark. The use in this publication
of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if
they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of
opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights.

While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true
and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the
editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any
errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no
warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained
herein.

Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer Science+Business

Media New York, 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 100043. Phone 1-
800-SPRINGER, fax (201) 348-4505, e-mail orders-ny@springer-
sbm.com, or visit www.springeronline.com. Apress Media, LLC is a
California LLC and the sole member (owner) is Springer Science +
Business Media Finance Inc (SSBM Finance Inc). SSBM Finance Inc is a
Delaware corporation.
To all those who tinker to keep the world running.
Introduction
There is one question beginners and even good self-taught developers
ask me all the time: “How do I learn data structures and algorithms?” I
have had to answer this question so often that I thought I would write it
down in a book so that anyone interested in this topic could follow
along and understand the process.
The thing is, anyone can learn the basics of data structures and
algorithms. There really isn’t much to them. The hardest part of
teaching someone this topic is that they are likely to be using any
language from the current “zoo” of languages. They may be using
Python, Java, C++, or even C or Rust. Whatever the language they are
using, it is important to be able to understand data structures and
algorithms at the fundamental level. As such, I decided to make my
book “codeless.” This is a book on algorithms and data structures that
doesn’t use a single line of code from any programming language.
As someone who must regularly change between different
programing languages, take it from me, once you understand the
concepts behind these algorithms in a codeless way, then you will be
able to apply them to whatever language you are using.
There are also some people “devout” in their programming
language who are unwilling to look at any material that isn’t in their
language of choice. As such, I have written this book without offending
anyone’s “beliefs.” I think there are enough books on “data structures
and algorithms in X language” that are thousands of pages detailing
programs and all their nuances for the language you are using. I think
such books would be fine complements to this one, as this book will
give you the “big picture,” and then you can look at whatever book you
want for the rest. You can learn about a concept here and then go to
that book to learn the programming details.
Everything is explained in plain English, and each chapter is short
and to the point. You will learn a lot without burning your brain out.
Who Is This Book For?
This book is for people who want to understand data structures and
algorithms but don’t want unnecessary details about quirks of a
language and don’t have time to sit and read a massive tome on the
subject. This book is for people who want to understand the concepts of
algorithms and data structures in plain English. I assume, though, that
you have knowledge of at least one programming language, preferably a
C-based one such as C, C++, Java, C#, or Python. The types and
terminology used in this book are biased toward people who have used
one of these languages.
I assume you are good at thinking abstractly and at least have basic
knowledge of a programming language and of the basics of computer
science (what a bit is, what a byte is, etc.). I also assume you know basic
mathematics, at least algebra, though this book is by no means a “math-
heavy” book. I use math concepts only where they are necessary and
explain them clearly.

What Will I Need for This Book?

You won’t need anything except an open mind and time to read and
understand the concepts being presented. I wrote this book as if we
were having a coffee and I was explaining these concepts to you from
the top of my head. For that reason, you won’t need any compiler or text
editor, just a listening ear.

What Will I Learn in This Book?

You will learn quite a lot in a short space of time about data structures
and algorithms. You will learn the concepts of data structures and
algorithms with a focus on the most relevant ones in simple, plain
language. After completing this book, you’ll understand which data
structures and algorithms can be used to solve which problems and will
be able to confidently follow along with discussions involving
algorithms and data structures.
PART I – Data Structures
 Chapter 1 goes into what algorithms and data structures are, and
we discuss primitive types and Big O notation.
Chapter 2 looks at the linear data structures of arrays and linked
lists; we also discuss stacks and queues.
Chapter 3 delves into trees and tree-based data structures.
Chapter 4 introduces you to hash-type data structures.
Chapter 5 briefly covers the basics of graphs.
PART II – Algorithms
Chapter 6 introduces two common algorithms, that of linear search
and binary search.
Chapter 7 explores sorting algorithms, including bubble sort,
selection sort, insertion sort, merge sort, and quick sort.
Chapter 8 presents some search algorithms; we look at breath-first
search, Dijkstra’s algorithm, and the A∗ algorithm.
Chapter 9 introduces clustering algorithms, specifically the K-
means algorithm and K-nearest neighbor and get a taste of machine
learning and neural networks.
Chapter 10 teaches some basics about the concept of randomness.
Appendix A provides resources for going further.
Upon finishing this book, you will have a solid foundation in
algorithms and data structures and will be able to use this knowledge
when writing and designing your own programs.

Errata and Suggestions

If you find any errors in this text, have suggestions, or want to ask a
question about your own project, you can contact me
atarmstrongsubero@gmail.com ; please, no spam.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank my family.
I want to thankeveryone who ever said anything positive to me or
taught me something. I heard it all, and it meant something.
I want to thank God most of all, because without God I wouldn’t be
able to do any of this.
Contents
Part I: Data Structures
Chapter 1:​Intro to DSA, Types, and Big O
Chapter 2:​Linear Data Structures
Chapter 3:​Tree Data Structures
Chapter 4:​Hash Data Structures
Chapter 5:​Graphs
Part II: Algorithms
Chapter 6:​Linear and Binary Search
Chapter 7:​Sorting Algorithms
Chapter 8:​Searching Algorithms
Chapter 9:​Clustering Algorithms
Chapter 10:​Randomness
Chapter 11:​Scheduling Algorithms
Chapter 12:​Algorithm Planning and Design
Appendix A:​Going Further
Index
About the Author
Armstrong Subero
started learning electronics at the age of
8. From then on he got into
programming and embedded systems
development. Within the realm of
programming, he has a special interest in
algorithms and data structures and
enjoys implementing them in different
programming languages and on different
processor architectures, particularly
resource-constrained systems. He
currently works at the Ministry of
National Security in his country, and he
has degrees in computer science and
liberal arts and sciences from Thomas Edison State University. He is the
author ofProgramming PIC Microcontrollers with XC8 (Apress, 2018).
Part I
Data Structures
© Armstrong Subero 2020
A. Subero, Codeless Data Structures and Algorithms
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5725-8_1

1. Intro to DSA, Types, and Big O

Armstrong Subero1
(1) Basse Terre, Moruga, Trinidad and Tobago

Every journey has a beginning. In this chapter, we will begin our

journey by talking about what data structures and algorithms are. I will
introduce basic types, and I will show you how easy Big O notation is to
understand. If you have ever read a dull, overly complex book on data
structures and algorithms (abbreviated to DSA), you will love how
quickly this chapter teaches you things!

An Overview of Data Structures and Algorithms

“Talk is cheap. Show me the code.”
—Linus Torvalds, Finnish software engineer and creator of
Linux

Linus said this while replying on the Linux Kernel mailing list on
August 25, 2000. This reply has become a famous quote among
programmers. It is used by developers whenever they don’t want to
read anything and instead just jump into coding. This approach is
particularly taken by novices and poorly self-taught programmers.
They don’t plan, they think they know more than everyone, and they
think programming is all about the code. This couldn’t be further from
the truth. Code simply expresses your thoughts to solve a problem.
Nothing more. Therefore, the more you know, the more you can apply
to solve a problem.
Data structures and algorithms are simply more things to know to
apply to solve your problems. Despite some people using them
interchangeably, data structures and algorithms are actually very
different things. It is possible to learn data structures and algorithms
without touching a programming language. Programming essentially
consists of thinking algorithmically and knowing the syntax of the
programming language to solve problems. In this book, we will focus on
thinking algorithmically and avoid learning the syntax of any
programming language.
Before we discuss data structures and algorithms, I think we should
talk a little about data. Data can mean different things depending on the
discipline you are currently occupied with. However, data within the
context of this book refers to any information that is stored on your
machine or that is being handled or processed by it. Data should not be
confused with information, which is data that has been processed;
however, within the context of computing, many developers may use
these terms independently to mean the same thing.

Data Structures
A data structure is a concept we use to describe ways to organize and
store types of data. Data structures are important because they not only
provide a way of storing and organizing data but also provide a way of
identifying data within the structure; additionally, they show the
relationships of the data within the structure. It is best to illustrate
what a data structure is with an example.
For example, let’s say we have some footwear, as depicted in Figure
1-1. We have two boots and two shoes arranged alternately.

Figure 1-1. Two types of footwear

We can think of each side of the shoe as a unit of data. If we needed

a way to maintain this data arrangement, we would need a mechanism
to provide some ordering and identification of these shoes; this is what
we may call a data structure. A data structure may provide some
mechanism to organize and store this data, for example, by separating
boots and shoes as shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2. Separating boots and shoes

A data structure may also be able to take each item and, regardless
of whether it’s a shoe or boot, assign an identifier, for example, a
number as shown in Figure 1-3.

Figure 1-3. Assigning identifiers

So, if I wanted the “second shoe,” instead of wondering if this means

from the left or from the right, I can simply tell the data structure, “Give
me the shoe at index 2,” and I will get exactly what I wanted.
As basic as it may seem, this is all a data structure does, though
there are much more complex methods of storing, identifying, and
showing the relationships within data. This explanation provides a
good grasp of what a data structure does. If you still aren’t clear what a
data structure is, it is best to think of a data structure as a container for
data.

Algorithms
An algorithm is a method of solving a problem by applying a sequence
of steps that will always work to solve the type of problem it was
designed to solve. Another way of saying this is that an algorithm is
simply a method of solving a problem in an ordered manner. We can
even shorten it further to say an algorithm is a procedure. Many people
may have expanded or diminished perspectives to describe what an
algorithm is, but this definition will work for our understanding.
One thing everyone will agree on is that algorithms are logical steps
to accomplish a task. To accomplish this, an algorithm must be simple,
precise, and unambiguous. Though some programmers focus on using
esoteric features of programming languages that make an algorithm
hard to read for other programmers, the simpler and more intuitive an
algorithm is, the more powerful and useful it will be.
We can describe algorithms with natural languages such as English,
pseudocode, or a programming language. We can discuss algorithms at
great length; however, it is best to see how algorithms work with a good
example. In our example, we can show how algorithms operate with a
pure English description, with no code needed.
We can gain an understanding of algorithms by looking at one in
action. Let’s say you need to put some fruit on a plate. You would, of
course, grab a plate and put some fruit on it, right? Well, imagine you
were describing these same steps to a robot. How would you do it? You
would tell the robot to do something like the following:
1. Go to the cupboard.

2. Open the door.

3. Take out a plate.

4. Go to the fruit bowl.

5. Put the fruit on the plate.

This seems like a logical sequence of steps, until you look around
the kitchen and realize that the robot left the cupboard door open. So,
you decide to add another step to the algorithm, as shown here:
1. Go to the cupboard.

2. Open the door.

3. Take out a plate.

4. Close the cupboard door.

5. Go to the fruit bowl.

6. Put the fruit on the plate.

You watch the robot run through the new steps, only to realize that
the robot is stuck at step 6, unable to put any fruit on the plate because
the fruit bowl has a tomato and the robot doesn’t know if a tomato is a
fruit or a vegetable. This is where data structures come into play for
working with algorithms.

Algorithms and Data Structures in Tandem

Data structures and algorithms are separate but complementary to
each other. We can say that data structures organize data that
algorithms work upon. Data structures provide the fragments that
algorithms take in, process, and output into whole information that the
end user wants to derive.
Let’s look at the problem we arrived at in the previous section when
we wanted our robot to place fruit on a plate. While our algorithm
seemed sound, because of a simple classification problem, our robot
became stuck. One solution to this is to tell the robot that if the item is
part of a plant, it is a vegetable, and if the item is formed from the
mature ovary of a seed, then it is a fruit. The robot may become
confused here because that is too much information to process. We
must define what a plant is, what a seed is, what an ovary is, and what a
vegetable is, which makes our algorithm more complex.
Another, simpler way to do this is to have a data structure that
organizes images with all the fruit the robot is likely to encounter and
perform a check to see whether the item belongs to a member of that
structure. If it is a member, the robot places it on the plate; otherwise,
the robot skips that item. If the item is in between, then the robot will
place it if it shares more characteristics with other fruits than not. This
“grouping if lots of characteristics are shared” is part of a later
algorithm for classification we will discuss in Chapter 9 on clustering
algorithms.

Primitive Types
In the previous section, we talked about data structures and algorithms.
We said that a data structure stores and organizes data that algorithms
then process to get some output. We also said that data is information
stored on your machine or that is being processed by it. What we didn’t
say is that this data can be of different types.
Data needs to be of different types because a computer is a very
specific device. We have all heard the phrase “garbage in garbage out”
(GIGO) . This term gives us only part of the picture. We must realize that
a computer is an input-output device, yes, but it is also a device that
performs processing on data before it is output. This means we can put
good data in and still get garbage out.
This can happen in two ways. The most obvious way is that the
computer will perform an error in the processing of the problem (our
algorithm is bad). The other way is that if we fail to tell the computer
what type of data it is working on, then it will not know what to do and
will still output garbage. This will occur even if our algorithm is good,
as the algorithm is expecting data of a certain type.
This seems so simple, yet it is so important. In fact, it is so primitive
that we have a name for telling the computer what type of data types
we are working on. We call this the primitive data type.
 A data type will tell our machine the attributes of the data we are
using and what we intend to do with the data. There are many data
types in computing, but the primitive data type is the most basic type
there is in your programming language of choice. It is so basic that it
usually forms part of the language itself and is usually built into the
language.
From these primitive languages, we get other data types. Though
most programming languages will have their own names for the data
types, they all fall into one of the following from the C-based languages.
I call them the “Big Four” because from these big four cornerstones,
everything else is built upon.
Sometimes these data types are also called atomic data types simply
because you cannot divide them into a lower-level type; they are as low
as a data type can get.
These are the four types of primitive data types:
Boolean
Character
Integer
Floating-point number
These four basic data structures tell your computer what type of
data you are working on. Let’s look at each of them in detail now and
get a good understanding of what they are.

Boolean
The Boolean primitive data type is the first one we will look at. The
Boolean type is known as a logical data type, having two possible
values: True and False, 0 and 1, or ON and OFF.
At the heart of classical computing is the Boolean data type.
Classical computers have a processor that consists of millions of
transistors that turn on or off. Based on them being on or off, we get all
sorts of amazing operations, storage, and all the mechanisms you can
think about in classical computing. The binary running in the
arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and the instruction register consists of
simply 0s and 1s. The concept of ON and OFF is so powerful that it
translates into basically all programming languages in one form or
another.
While it is not necessarily pertinent to our discussion on the
Boolean data type, it is handy to know that in the realm of quantum
computing there exists quantum bits called qubits . While in the realm
of classical computing the “hard on” and “hard off” Boolean type is
standard, quantum computers have qubits that are neither 0 nor 1 but
are in a state of superposition having both states simultaneously.

Character
The next item on our list is the character . Classical computers work on
binary bits of information and prefer to crunch numbers. Humans, on
the other hand, prefer to work with the natural language of their choice.
This is where characters come in.
Us humans find it difficult to remember data by its binary sequence
of representation. As such, characters can be used to give us a more
understandable and easier-to-remember version of this sequence of
binary bits. When we combine this sequence of characters into strings,
it makes this much better. For example, the variable cat is more
readable, recognizable, and memorable written as cat than as
01100011 01100001 01110100. Characters are used to make up
strings and have differing encodings depending on the machine you are
using.

Integer
The computer is all about numbers, and no data type is better fit to
represent numbers than the integer. An integer refers to a
mathematical number that does not have any fractional constituent, for
example, 6 or 7.
The only distinction between integers in mathematics and integers
in computer science is that in mathematics integers, unless they belong
to a finite subset, are infinite. In computing, because of limitations in
processor architecture and memory, integers are not infinite.
Floating-Point Number
The floating-point number can be thought of as an integer with a
fractional constituent. This is the type of number that people refer to as
decimals, for example, 6.5 or 7.1. They are called floating point because
the little dot (.) called the radix point can float, or move, to accurately
represent the number we are displaying.
Floating-point numbers are usually described as either single
precision or double precision. Single-precision floating-point numbers
are represented with a 32-bit word, whereas double-precision numbers
are represented by a 64-bit word. Usually single-precision floating-
point numbers are called floats, and double-precision floating-point
numbers are called doubles . There are also floating-point numbers that
require 128-bit word representations that are called decimals .

Functions
Before we go further, I would like to take a moment to discuss an
important mathematical concept that is intertwined with computer
science, that of the function. Note that the mathematical function we
are discussing shouldn’t be confused with functions in programming,
which refer to a section of code that performs some task.
In mathematics, a function is an expression that maps an
independent variable to a dependent variable.
We call the input to the function the domain, and we call the output
the range. Each domain element can be mapped to one, and only one,
element in the range. The function determines which element at the
domain gets mapped to which at the range.
In Figure 1-4 we have a function that matches numbers on the
domain with letters in the range.
Figure 1-4. Mathematical function
The function can be visualized as a black box that takes an input,
does some processing, and gives an output (kind of sounds like a
computer, doesn’t it?). Look at Figure 1-5 to see the essence of what a
function is.

Figure 1-5. Essence of a function

Even though earlier it was mentioned that a mathematical function

shouldn’t be confused with a function in programming, in programming
when we talk about a function, we talk about a routine or procedure.
Some functions in programming are identical to the functions in
mathematics in the sense that they take some input parameter, do some
processing on it, and then return a value. This simple concept is
important to understand, as you will see moving forward.

Functions, Methods, Procedures, and Subroutines

This book takes a codeless approach to teaching you data structures
and algorithms; however, there is some lingo from programming
languages that you need to be familiar with as some terms will come up
in our discussion of algorithms in later chapters. These are functions,
methods, procedures, and subroutines.
It is best to begin our discussion on functions by relating it to
something we are familiar with like a house. When we are building a
house, we use bricks to gradually build it up; some people call these
bricks blocks. Now you can think of a program like a large house made
of many building blocks. A group of blocks can be combined to make a
wall or a room. According to how you configure the blocks, you can
have a wall that has a window or a wall that does not have a window.
Within the realm of construction, it is not possible to save a
configuration of bricks as a wall with or without a window and simply
replicate it to build our house because actual people must assemble the
wall. However, when building software, it is possible to save an
arrangement of a block of code that solves a task and use it many times
over. We call this bit of code a function.
This function is like the mathematical function we spoke of in the
previous section; however, it is not the same. Functions in
programming languages take data as an input that we call parameters
or arguments, and sometimes they return a result. I say sometimes
because unlike mathematical functions that give an output based on an
input, functions sometimes do not return any result, which is called a
void function in C-based programming languages.
Some programming languages are called object-oriented
programming (OOP) languages and within them exists special code that
are blueprints for other code. We call this code that acts as a blueprint a
class. When functions exist inside of a class, we call them methods.
Essentially, methods are functions called by that name in discussions
about OOP languages.
Some programming languages may call a function a procedure or a
subroutine ; you should know, though, that some programmers refer to
functions that do not return a value as procedures as well.
Functions, methods, procedures, and subroutines all mean the same
thing and serve the same purpose; it depends on the language you are
using and sometimes who you are speaking to. They are all small
programs, or subprograms rather, that can be called within a larger
program.
Recursion and Iteration
Before we go further with our discussion on algorithms, I think we
should look at the concepts of recursion and iteration. Recursion is a
tricky thing to understand. Let’s imagine you hear a new word such as
thingamaword and you don’t know what it means. You turn to the
dictionary only to see the following definition:
thingamaword. see thingamaword.
Such a definition would make no sense, as the meaning refers to
itself. This is what recursion is; it is the process of something being
defined in terms of itself. Within the context of programming, a
recursive function is one that calls itself as part of its operation. To end
the cycle of a function calling itself, usually a recursive function runs
until a certain condition is met.
If the recursive function calls itself too much, then due to a machine
having finite memory, the machine will run out of memory, and you
may get what is known as a stack overflow error due to the maximum
recursion depth being exceeded.
Recursion finds many uses in programming languages, and many
algorithms are in fact dependent on recursion to operate. We will see
examples of such algorithms as we work throughout the book.
Iteration is another term that you hear quite often that should not
be confused with recursion. Iteration within algorithms refers to the
process whereby a block of code sequence is repeated until a certain
condition specified by the program designer is met.
For example, let’s say we are entering a password into a system. The
program can be designed in such a way that the user will enter the
password a fixed number of times until the correct password is entered.
An iterative function can be the heart of the program in that the user
will be given three times to enter the password, and if the three times
are exceeded, then the user will be locked out of the program.
In such a scenario, the iteration is the block of code being executed
three times, and the specified conditions for exiting the iterative
sequence are the correct password being entered within three tries and
the user entering the wrong password.
 Iteration finds extensive use in the execution of algorithms and
within general programming as well. One thing that should be
mentioned about iteration, though, is that, like recursion, if you do not
specify an exit condition due to a computer having finite memory, you
will get errors in the program.
Many algorithms can use either recursion or iteration to solve the
problems they are designed for; however, it depends on the algorithm
designer to choose which method is best.

The Three Types of Algorithms

In ending our introduction on data structures and algorithms, I think
it’s best if we discuss the three types of algorithms. Within the context
of algorithm types there are three basic approaches to solving a
problem. These three approaches are dividing and conquer, greedy, and
dynamic.
Divide-and-conquer algorithms take a large problem, divide it into
many smaller problems, and then combine the results to obtain a
solution. Think about ants harvesting leaves from a tree. If the goal of
the ants is to strip the tree of all its leaves, this is a daunting task for any
single ant regardless of how hard it works.
A tree is many times larger than an ant; however, if thousands of
ants each attack a single leaf, then they would be able to solve the
problem of stripping the tree of its leaves. Some large problems within
computing require this type of approach to solve a problem.
Greedy algorithms are algorithms that take the best decision at any
point in time. Imagine a superhero having a choice to make between
catching the bad guy who is escaping or rescuing the damsel who is
about to face impending doom. This requires decisive action, and the
superhero will make the choice he thinks is best at that point in time.
Similarly, greedy algorithms will do what is best at the point in time
at which the algorithm is executing, whether it has the best overall
impact to solve the problem at hand or not. Some problems require this
type of algorithm to solve. One of the most popular is the traveling
salesperson problem. This problem is one of the most important in
computer science.
 It goes like this: a salesperson wants to visit X number of cities.
What is the shortest path he must take to travel through all the cities
while traveling the minimum possible distance? While the solution
plagues computer science, greedy algorithms offer somewhat of a
solution to the problem. If we take a greedy approach, we will begin at
one city and take the next closest possible city thereafter for each city
we visit. While this may not be the shortest overall path, it may give a
good approximation of what the best possible path is.
In contrast to the greedy approach, dynamic programming–based
algorithms take another approach to solving problems. With the
dynamic approach, we make decisions catering for future implications
while considering the past results. While both approaches focus on
breaking up a problem into smaller parts, the greedy algorithms
consider only what is best at that point in time; the dynamic approach
looks at multiple solutions to the problem, computes them, stores them,
and then later will recall them for reuse.
The dynamic approach is used for things such as speech
recognition, gene sequencing, and, probably the most likely use case
you will encounter, matrix chain multiplication. The best way to
describe the dynamic approach is that while the greedy approach
approximates, the dynamic approach optimizes.

Analyzing Algorithms
We haven’t even gone into looking at any algorithms yet, but I think it’s
time we discuss some basic algorithmic analysis as it will make
everything going forward much easier.
Designing an algorithm is one thing. The other thing we must
consider is analyzing the performance of the algorithm once we have
designed it. As we discussed, an algorithm is a sequence of steps that is
used to solve a problem. The fewer steps we can use to solve our
problem, the more efficient our algorithm can be said to be. There are
two ways we can analyze our algorithms for efficiency. They are called
time complexity and space complexity.
Time complexity refers to the amount of time an algorithm takes to
solve the problem based on the input it is given. This is the most
common method of examining how efficient an algorithm is in terms of
performance.
Space complexity, on the other hand, refers to the amount of
memory from the machine the algorithm will take to solve a problem.
This method is not as widely used for explaining algorithm efficiency
and analysis. This does not mean it is not necessary as there are
instances where space complexity is important, particularly when
working on resource-constrained systems; it is just not as widely used.
That’s all there is to it. Though both methods of analyzing
algorithms are important, as was mentioned, time complexity is by far
more often used in practice for analyzing algorithms and measuring
their performance, and for that reason we will focus on time complexity
in this chapter.
We will need to delve a little deeper into time complexity to
understand the algorithms presented in this book more effectively.
There are two ways we can analyze algorithms’ time complexity, which
are practically and mathematically.
Practically, we can write the algorithm in our programming
language of choice and vary the input and output and then use some
method to record our observations based on the amount of input
and/or output data our algorithm must work with. Based on this
observation and recording, we can then determine how efficient our
algorithm is. Not only is this method dreary, but it is inaccurate and
limited in scope. To circumvent this way of doing things, we can use a
mathematical method.
The way we mathematically determine the efficiency of an
algorithm is known as asymptotic analysis . While it seems complex and
unnecessary, using asymptotic analysis will save us a lot of time when
analyzing our algorithms.
Essentially, asymptotic analysis describes the limiting behavior of
an algorithm; we usually try to determine what would be the worst-
case performance of our algorithm, and sometimes we try to find the
average performance. To effectively describe the differences in
asymptotic growth rates of functions, we use something called Big O
notation, which we will look at in the next section.
Big O
The way we mathematically determine the efficiency of an algorithm
can fall into one of three categories. We can measure the worst-case
scenario, which is the longest time our algorithm will take to run; we
can measure the best-case scenario, which is the shortest time our
algorithm will take to run; or we can measure both cases, which is both
the best case and the worst case. Sometimes we can also measure the
average case, which is how we expect our algorithm to run most of the
time.
There are many notations we use for describing the efficiency of our
algorithm including Big Omega, Little Omega, Big O, Little O, and Theta.
Each notation has its application; however, some methods are used in
the industry more frequently than others.
Of all these methods, Big O is the one that is most utilized for
asymptotic analysis notation. If you have heard of this notation, then
you may wonder why it is called Big O. Well, the O in Big O refers to the
“order of complexity” or the “order.” We usually write the order of
complexity of something with a capital O or a “big O.” That is why we
call it Big O notation.
In other forms of notation, omega notation describes the
measurement of the minimum time our algorithm will take to run, and
theta describes the minimum and maximum time our algorithm will
take to run. By contrast, Big O describes the maximum amount of time
our algorithm will take to run. In essence, Big O describes the worst-
case running time of our algorithm.
There are many ways to describe Big O runtime, but here are some
types of Big O run times you will come across:
O(1): The algorithm has a constant execution time, which is
independent of the input size.
O(n): The algorithm is linear, and performance grows in proportion
to the size of the input data.
O(log n): The algorithm is logarithmic; as time increases linearly,
then n will go up exponentially. This means that more elements will
take less time.
O(n log n): The algorithm is logarithmic multiplied by some variable
n.
 O(n^2): The algorithm is quadratic, and the running time is
proportional to the square of the input.
O(2^n): The algorithm is exponential; execution time doubles with
the addition of each new element.
O(n!): The algorithm is factorial and will execute in n factorial time
for every new operation that is performed.
These classifications are the ones you will come across most often.
Constant time has the best performance followed by logarithmic time.
The factorial O(n!) has the worst time possible; it is terrible! In fact, it is
at the heart of a complex computer science problem, the traveling
salesperson problem that we discussed earlier.

Conclusion
In this chapter, we got an introduction to data structures and
algorithms. We discussed data, functions, data structures, and
algorithms. We also looked at primitive data types, iteration, and
recursion as well as the three fundamental types of algorithms. We then
went a step further and discussed analyzing algorithms as well as the
basics of Big O notation. This was a lot of information, and believe it or
not there are many practicing developers who do not understand some
of the topics presented in this chapter, so you are already ahead of the
pack. In the next chapter, we will begin our “deep dive” into the world
of DSA, as we will discuss linear data structures.
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
Meanwhile he commented in disjointed fragments to Freel.
“I’ll go on down with you and explain it. It’s a right foolish charge.”
He was now fully dressed. “They’ll let me out by to-morrow so it
don’t matter any.” And to himself, “After Noll’s first shot there’s two
from inside. Neighbors look out into the moonlight. Freel has ducked
back outside and they see him prone on the ground shooting into
the house. He rushes the open door, calling out to me to surrender
in the name of the law, and the neighbors all hear him. There’s
sounds of a struggle inside; chairs overturned, and there’s shooting.
A regular hell-roaring combat—and me dead on the floor all the
time.”
He moved to the window. Lassiter was nowhere in sight.
“Flat against the house between the window and the door,” he
decided; then aloud to Freel, “Anyone with you?”
“Not a soul,” Freel lied.
“Better so; maybe we can figure out some little bet whereby it would
be to your advantage to help me come clear of this charge.” He was
now fully clothed and he crossed to the door without permitting his
boot heels to touch the floor. “Can’t find a match,” he complained,
fumbling at the catch. “Come in and strike a light while I hop into
my clothes. I’m in my nightie.” He opened the door, standing back
from the streak of moonlight which streamed through. Freel would
shoot if he saw that Carver was already dressed.
“I’ll just wait here,” Freel said.
“And pot me as I step out,” Carver mentally completed.
“You’ll be out on bond in an hour,” Freel resumed. His head was
within a foot of the door as he attempted to peer inside.
Carver swung his gun with deadly precision and Freel collapsed
without a word as the heavy weapon descended solidly upon his
skull. Before the deputy had fairly struck the ground Carver was
peering round the door jamb with the gun levelled on Lassiter who
was flattened against the house some three feet from the door.
“Steady! Let it slide out of your hand!” Carver ordered.
Lassiter’s slow brain had scarcely grasped the fact that his plans had
gone amiss, and even as the hand which held his gun relaxed in
response to the order, Carver took one swift half step round the door
and swung his own weapon again.
Ten minutes later he had saddled and was riding out of town. As he
cleared it, he chanted a verse wherein the tumbleweed rebuked the
sluggish pumpkin for sticking to its garden patch as Thanksgiving
day approached.
“You can lay right there and wait
To be turned into pies and tarts,
But me, I’ll jump the fence right now
And head for other parts.”
“Freel’s bringing me in feet first, like he’d planned, could be easy
explained,” Carver reflected. “But a live active prisoner is different.
The last thing in this world he’d want is to book me for trial. I
couldn’t force myself on him as a captive. Next time I meet Freel out
in company I’ll surrender and insist that he puts me under arrest.”
 IV
The cook wagon lumbered down Cabin Creek toward the Salt Fork of
the Arkansas. A dozen hands, riding in couplets, straggled irregularly
behind. The bed wagon followed and the horse wrangler brought up
the rear with the remuda which numbered some two hundred head
of horses, including the string of extra mounts for each round-up
hand who rode with the Half Diamond H wagon.
A rider waited on the far bank of the Salt Fork with his string of
extra horses and the men speculated idly as to whether he
represented Crowfoot or the Coldstream Pool, it being the custom to
exchange “reps” to ride with neighboring wagons. The horseman
proved to be Bart Lassiter, repping for Crowfoot. Carver’s intimation
as to Crowfoot’s methods and their possible connection with the X I
L trail herd, dropped on the occasion of his last visit with Molly
Lassiter, had borne fruit. The Half Diamond H crew had been full-
handed but the girl had induced Bart to ride with their wagon as
Crowfoot’s rep instead of accompanying his half-brothers to the X I
L.
Lassiter threw his extra mounts in with the remuda and joined
Carver, who opened up on him without parley.
“I tendered you the key to my little house so that you could use it
for living purposes,” he said, “but without any notion that you’d start
up in business. From all that I can gather you set out to abate the
thirst of the whole Cherokee Nation.”
“Well, the poor devils are fixed up every other way,” Bart explained.
“They draw beef rations, flour rations, blanket issues and so on, but
nobody’s ever been thoughtful enough to provide them with licker
rations, so they’re forced to live a one-sided, unbalanced kind of
existence and I was striving to supply the lack and sort of round out
their lives.”
“An’ you came near to finishing mine,” Carver stated.
“It was only that once,” Bart defended. “I did dispose of several
cases at a right handsome profit and you’ve no notion how much
they enjoyed theirselves the next night. It would have done your
heart good to have heard it. All Caldwell turned out to listen to the
expansive sounds emanating from the Cherokee camp south of
town.”
Carver had placed that first illusive impression that Molly Lassiter
was in grave need of something without which her life was not quite
complete. It was no material requirement but a need that was
deeper than that. She despised the ways of the two older half-
brothers, who had been practically strangers to her during her own
early life, showing up at her father’s home but infrequently. Later,
after her own mother’s death, they had returned and made it their
home. There had never been any bond between them and herself,
and she had feared the effect their ways might exercise upon Bart.
Freel had spoken the truth when he asserted that she knew what it
was to have the law always barking at her door. Carver knew now
that what she most needed was peace,—assurance that the same
old conditions would not pertain to her life and Bart’s.
“Why do you put Molly up against that sort of thing?” he demanded.
“She didn’t know,” Bart returned.
“But she’d know if they happened to clamp down on you for it,”
Carver insisted. “And that’s what she’s guarding against. She’s
always had that sort of thing to fight off.”
“She has for a fact,” Bart admitted. “The old man was a hard citizen
himself, way back in his youth. He’d quieted down for a good many
years but after the two boys came back he sort of leaned their way
again. There’s been times when Molly and me was kids, and left all
alone in the house or wherever we happened to be at the time, that
folks would come round inquiring about his whereabouts, and the
old man hiding out in the hills about them. She thought a lot of him,
Molly did, and hated Milt and Noll for leading him off.”
“Then why don’t you shake them?” Carver demanded. “There’s no
common bond between you and them, and Molly would be way
better off.”
“I’ve made the break now and again,” Bart explained. “But they
always turn up. Our family line-up is fashioned after that fabled joint
snake. You can disrupt the critter but the pieces crawl back together
again and all stand united.”
“If there’s any more midnight visits made at my cabin,” said Carver;
“there’ll be one middle joint absent from the next family reunion.”
“I take it you’re referring to Noll,” said Bart. “If you’ll only accept my
earnest advice you’ll decoy Noll off to some quiet spot and snap a
cap at him. I promise it won’t upset me a bit.”
On the third day out from the ranch Carver rode with Nate Younger
along a low ridge studded with a straggling stand of black-jack
timber. The old man’s face was stern and set as he viewed the
procession filing for two miles along the open bottoms below them.
A dozen round-up crews made up the picture, for this was a
coöperative move by all the outfits ranging in the Strip, the great
final combing of stock from the unowned lands.
Far up the valley, a mere speck in the distance, the Half Diamond H
wagon led the way while the others trailed at intervals. Two hundred
riders, the personnel probably including the most efficient body of
cowhands in the world, straggled up the bottoms in irregular
formation. The extra horses, if combined into one cavayado would
number over two thousand head. A group of riders hovered near the
last wagon, it having encountered difficulties in making the crossing
of the Cimarron, resuming their way as the quick-sands relinquished
their sucking hold upon the wheels and the floundering horses
snaked the lumbering vehicle out upon the solid shore. A band of
twenty Cherokees flanked the cavalcade and dashed from one outfit
to the next, begging food from each wagon boss in turn. Midway of
the procession a detachment of cavalry rode in double file while the
officer in command conferred with the man in charge of that
particular wagon. As Carver watched they dropped back abreast of
the next in line and he knew the message delivered to each one in
turn by the soldiery,—the instructions to make a thorough sweep
and clear every head of stock from the Cherokee Strip.
The Indians, having gathered contributions sufficient for the
moment, including a steer which was pointed out to them by the
owner of the brand worn by the animal, hazed this moveable meat
supply to the crest of an adjacent knoll and there dropped it with an
accompaniment of rifle shots. Younger waved a hand toward the
scene spread out before him.
“That’s the way I saw the Old West first,” he said. “The picture is
mighty near identical; the wagons rolling along just like that, only
drawn up in more tight formation; the cavayado trailing under guard,
holding all the extra horses of the settlers; maybe a band of
marauding reds clustered off to one side like them that are hacking
up that steer; sometimes a little escort of troopers helping us at bad
crossings where the Kiowas and Comanches was most liable to jump
us while a part of the train was bogged down in the sand. The
wagons was more likely dragged by bulls than horses then, and
buffalo was scattered round the landscape in place of range cows,
but on the whole the picture tallies close enough.” The old man
turned his gaze away. “That’s the way we was first ushered into the
Old West, son. Maybe it’s fitting that we’re being similarly ushered
out of the last bit that’s left for us.”
They rode on in silence and regained the head of the line. The
various wagons made camp at intervals sufficient to permit the
remudas of different outfits to be held on good grass at widely
separate points to prevent the possibility of their mixing. On this
occasion the men rode from one night camp to the next to renew
old friendships, fraternizing with the hands who rode for rival
brands. Another crew of similar magnitude had assembled at
another point in the Strip and during this same hour these men too
were mingling from one outfit to the next. Perhaps among the entire
three hundred odd gathered at these two points there was not one
man who fully realized that this meeting was to be the last of its
sort; not one who could even partly vision the circumstances of the
next.
Never again in history were these men to gather as a whole on the
open range. This night was the last. Many would meet in the future;
others would never meet again. Some would be neighbors for a
lifetime and it was slated that the trails of others should cross in far
places. Perhaps it is well that it is not given to man to look far into
the future. This last occasion was not marred by any thought that
the summons for the next gathering would not go forth for more
than a quarter of a century. There were many present who would
heed that plea which would one day be issued for all the old-time
peelers and bronc fighters of the Cherokee lands to assemble for a
final rally. They would not then travel across the open range with
chuck wagons and saddle horse. Some would be carried in
luxuriously appointed coaches that roared along steel rails; others in
glittering vehicles that purred swiftly along fenced and well-kept
highways; some would arrive in strange craft that swept across the
skies above thriving western cities situated on spots now widely
known as ideal cow-camp sites. A few indeed, but very few, would
come in buckboards or ride in on horses, their ropes coiled on
ancient saddles; and it would be these latter ones who would then
appear strange and out of place. But no such glimpse of future
actualities troubled the men as they sought friends who worked with
other wagons. There was a general disposition to scoff at the notion
that there would be no more cows ranged on the Strip. Even if it
were opened for entry it would be long before there were sufficient
settlers to take up any great percentage of the range. The
settlement of any country was a slow and tedious process. In any
event there were long years of life in the open—the only sort of
existence which they could endure with satisfaction—stretching forth
ahead of them; so why concern themselves over vague possibilities
of the future? That was the general attitude of them all, excepting
old Nate and his contemporaries, men who, like himself, were being
ushered out of their domain as they had been ushered in a
generation past. Their day was passing and they knew it.
Throughout the following day various wagons turned aside to the
right or left, branching away toward some far spot allotted to them,
there to begin the first actual work. In the late afternoon the Half
Diamond H wagon made its stand on a creek that flowed to the
Cimarron from the low watershed between that stream and the
North Fork of the Canadian. The cook’s summons brought the men
tumbling from their bed rolls an hour before dawn. The night hawk
hazed the remuda into a corral fashioned by a single rope stretched
between stakes sledged solidly into the sod, and after breakfasting
the men entered in pairs, each to rope a circle horse of his own
particular string. In the first light of day Younger led off up a ridge to
the main divide flanking the creek to the left and turned upstream
along it. Other reps had joined the wagon and there were now
nearly twenty riders following where he led. At the head of each
draw he detailed one or two men to work it. When half of the crew
had been assigned to cover certain stretches Younger dropped again
to the bottoms, mounted to the opposite divide and moved
downstream in a similar fashion until even with the wagon, working
the last draw himself.
The riders combed the scrub-oak side hills and the gulches, shoving
all stock before them to the bottoms and heading them upstream.
The first riders to finish their details were stationed across the valley
to halt the cows brought in by others. The chuck wagon had
lumbered on up the creek to the point from which the next circle
would be thrown. The night hawk had gone off duty with sunrise but
the wrangler held the remuda in a rope corral. While a part of the
men held the herd the others repaired to this enclosure and caught
fresh horses, those who were to engage in the next gathering swing
putting their ropes on circle mounts, while those detailed to bring up
the day herd caught trained cow horses belonging to their individual
strings.
In a breeding-ranch country the herd would have been worked on
the spot, calves roped and ironed with the brand worn by their
mothers, and only the beef steers cut into a day herd, the she-stuff
and all stock younger than two-year-olds being allowed to scatter
once more on the range. But there were no calves to brand, no she-
stock on the range, for of late the cowmen of the Strip had come to
follow one set rule in accord with the transition of the cow business,
forming an intermediate link between the old-time cattle kings of the
open range and the modern feeders of the corn belt. For beef
raising, instead of a one-outfit business from start to finish, had
come to be a business of progression induced by the necessities of
later-day conditions. Big breeding ranches were now mainly confined
to the vast wastes of Texas and the Southwest and to similar
stretches in the ranges of the Northwest.
The breeding ranches of Texas and New Mexico now gathered their
steers as two-year-olds and sold them to the intermediate beef-
brands operating in the Strip, the short-grass plains of Western
Kansas and the Sandhill country of Nebraska. Here they were ranged
on grass till they had turned four-year-olds, then resold to the
feeders of Missouri, Iowa and Illinois, who corn-fed and fattened and
finished them for market. Except for one breeding ranch confined to
a great fenced-in pasture, there was only beef stuff in the whole
expanse of the Strip, which rendered the round-up a comparatively
simple affair. This last event in particular was simplified by the orders
which had just gone forth from governmental sources, and every
head of stock gathered in each circle was held in the day herd.
The rope corral was dismantled, ropes and stakes loaded on the bed
wagon which promptly headed up country, trailed by the wrangler
with the remuda, and Carver led all the hands except those detailed
with the day herd up the bottoms toward the new stand of the cook
wagon. It was but ten o’clock when they dropped from their horses
and fell ravenously upon a hot meal which the cook had already
prepared, for while the cowhand’s day begins an hour before dawn
his nooning comes at ten and his knock-off time is seldom later than
five P. M.
The second circle of the day was completed in the late afternoon.
The hands feasted to repletion and lolled about for an hour, buzzing
angrily over a new rumor which had just reached camp. The men
spread their bed rolls on the ground and retired with the setting sun.
Carver dropped instantly asleep but contrary to his usual custom he
waked within an hour and sleep would not come to him as he tossed
restlessly in his blankets. The turmoil of the round-up, the hoarse
bawls emanating from the throats of five hundred steers, the shrill
yelps of riders, the stifling dust of daytime activities; all these had
been superseded by the night sounds of the cow camp in the open.
A cool breeze stole across the range which now seemed mysteriously
hushed. Occasionally some night horse on picket or tied to the stake
ropes shifted uneasily and stamped a restless foot. The night hawk
held the cavayado on good grass somewhere down the bottoms and
his voice drifted faintly to Carver as he sang to while away the lonely
hours. The night guards on duty with the herd were likewise singing
to soothe their charges on the bed ground a few hundred yards
above the wagon, and fragmentary snatches of their melodies
floated down to Carver’s ears as he blinked sleeplessly up at the
stars. He remained awake till the hour came to stand his turn on
second guard and he rolled out, mounted his night horse and rode
with several others to relieve the weary riders who had stood the
first shift of the night after a fourteen-hour day in the saddle.
As Carver circled the bed ground his thoughts were still concerned
with the text of the rumor so recently set afloat. It was said that not
only cows, but men would be ordered from the unowned lands; that
every foot of fence must be removed from the range and brand
owners forced to abandon home ranches. Bart Lassiter joined him.
“Well, what do you think of our latest bit of news?” he asked. “Think
they’ll go through with it?”
“It don’t seem reasonable that they’d put over any such drastic
measure,” Carver said. “They might. It will be hard on the old man if
they do.”
A figure rode toward him in the moonlight and the old man in
question joined him as Lassiter departed. Nate too had been restless
and had found himself unable to sleep. As Carver had reflected that
such a move would inflict an undeserved hardship upon his
employer, so Nate was wondering as to what effect it would have
upon his hands, for in common with all cowmen of his type, Younger
was proud of the accomplishments of his riders.
Every brand owner would stand back of the men who rode for him;
every rider evidenced a similar devotion to the owner’s interests,—a
loyalty to the brand for which he worked. Perhaps in all history there
has never been another calling which has inspired the same
allegiance throughout its entire personnel. A man must be proficient
in many lines to qualify as a cowhand. First of all he must be a
horseman capable of mastering any horse on the range and of
training his mounts to perform the various and intricate duties
required of them; a roper of parts, able to front-foot a calf or to rope
and hog-tie a mighty range bull with equal facility; sufficiently skilled
in blacksmithing to shoe his own horses; for these and many other
acquirements, working at them sixteen hours a day, he was paid a
lesser sum than any unskilled laborer received for ten hours of far
less gruelling work. It was the wild free life, not the pay, which held
him to his chosen calling. The driving spring rains which soaked his
bed roll as he slept on wet ground in the open; the shrivelling heat
of summer and the shrieking blasts of winter blizzards; the congenial
companionship of round-up days and the long lonely vigils at
isolated winter line camps; all these he chose in preference to the
softer life and greater pay of other less strenuous pursuits.
“What will all the boys be doing in another season?” Younger asked.
“Where’ll they all go when there’s no more range work for them to
do?”
“Texas maybe,” Carver predicted. “Or New Mexico.”
“Both those countries are coming to be overrun with nesters,” Nate
returned. “The big brands are getting their range cut up right now.
They’ve been forced to reduce the size of their outfits in proportion
to the decrease in their range. There’s more cowhands down there
now than there are jobs to go around.”
“Then maybe the Northwest range country,” Carver suggested.
“The surplus bronc peelers of Texas and New Mexico have been
drifting up there for the last ten years,” Nate stated. “They’re a drug
on the market right now, cowhands are. And they’re irrigating that
Northwest country rapid and cutting up the range. Once they settle
the Strip, all the boys down there will have to go into other lines.
That’s sure.”
The herd was worked and reworked almost daily as cows wearing
brands that ranged in different parts of the Strip were culled out and
turned over to some wagon crew whose ultimate destination lay in
that direction. All along a two-hundred-mile front more than a score
of wagons were operating in unison. Owners ranging south of the
Strip sent parties up to trail-herd back any of their stock that had
wandered to these parts. These men brought with them little
bunches of Half Diamond H cows and others that had drifted from
the Strip to southern ranges. Some came from beyond the Canadian
and at least one little assortment had been combed from the distant
Washita. Younger, in common with other large owners of his
neighborhood, maintained drift fences and line camps to prevent the
drifting of his stock from the home range. Even with these
precautions there was a certain annual leakage, but the percentage
of Half Diamond H cows gathered south of the Cimarron was small.
Day after day as the round-up progressed the men threshed out the
fate of the unowned lands. It constituted the sole topic of discussion
whenever two riders met on the circle or paused to converse as they
stood their turn on night guard. It filled that brief period of general
indolence in which they indulged each evening before taking to their
beds with the setting sun. Carver, perhaps to a greater extent than
any of them, had anticipated certain transitions. He had correctly
interpreted the presence of those white-topped wagons camped
along the line and knew what they portended, yet even now he
found it impossible to give credence to such drastic changes as were
predicted by old Nate and others of his kind. He sought for an
analogous example and found it in the settling process which Kansas
had been undergoing for a period of forty years; yet throughout the
whole western half of that State ranches of five to fifty thousand
acres were the rule. In view of this circumstance he could not quite
conceive of the vast expanse of the unowned lands being cut up into
quarter sections in the space of a few short years. It would all take
time. He advanced this idea to Younger on a day some three weeks
out from the ranch.
“All this talk about men being ordered out of the Strip,” he said.
“How are they going about that? I’ve seen the squatter outfits rolling
up to the line and making camp. But we’ve had similar
demonstrations before now; that year the boomers fired the grass
for one; and nothing came of it. They were ordered out. Even if they
let ’em in it will take years to settle up the Strip.”
Younger nodded abstractly. Since that event had cost him a
thousand head of cows it was but natural that the incident was still
fresh in his mind. A few years past a swarm of squatters had
invaded the unowned lands in the face of all regulations. When the
cowmen had sought to expel them after they had refused to obey
the government’s order to move out, the boomers had scattered and
fired the parched fall grass and stock had died by thousands
throughout the burned areas. The negro cavalry had been sent in to
enforce the regulations and were thereafter stationed at Caldwell,
patrolling the line and turning back all insistent settlers who would
enter. Now the Negro troopers had been withdrawn and a second
invasion seemed imminent.
“I know, son; but this time things will be reserved,” Nate prophesied.
“Then they ruled the squatters out and stood by us. This time
they’ve ruled us out instead.”
“They’ll open it for entry,” Carver agreed. “It’s come to that and it’s
likely we can’t postpone it. But this notion that the whole of the
Cherokee country will be settled up solid in a few years’ time seems
overdrawn.”
“A few months’ time, boy,” the old man corrected. “More likely a few
weeks will do the trick.”
Carver’s thoughts reverted to a similar prediction made by Hinman,
“It’ll be one hair-raising, mad stampede,” old Joe had said. But
Carver still dissented.
“It’ll take nearly fifty thousand families to file on every quarter
section in the Strip,” he said. “They’ll come eventually. I know that.
But where will that many come from in a few weeks’ time?”
“Son, they’ll come from every odd corner of the country,” Younger
stated. “They’ll swarm in and settle down in clouds like blackbirds in
a cane field. She’ll be the damnedest, wildest scramble a man will
ever live to witness. I’m telling you.”
 V
The stockyards had been the scene of feverish activity for weeks.
The loading pens were crowded to capacity and throughout every
hour of the day and night there sounded the bawls of thirsty cattle
and the shrill yelps of cowhands as they urged unwilling steers
through the loading chutes. Long trainloads of cows rolled out of
Caldwell in swift succession and loading was resumed as soon as
empty cattle cars could be obtained. An antiquated switch engine
wheezed noisily as it shunted cars along the switches and spotted
them at the chutes. Day by day the congestion increased. The
quarantine belt swarmed with stock, as some two hundred thousand
head had been gathered from the Cherokee lands for shipment. In
addition to these the regular run of summer business from the south
continued as the trail herds from Texas and New Mexico came
plodding up to add to the congestion.
Money flowed back into Caldwell in steady streams as trainloads of
cattle were converted into cash on the Kansas City and Chicago
markets. Many owners, having been deprived of their range by the
stringent orders, found themselves unable to reinvest in cows the
funds received from recent shipments. In their restlessness many of
these turned to the green tables for relaxation and there were stud
games where hundreds and often thousands were wagered on the
turn of every card. All the cowhands of the Strip were banked up in
the quarantine belt, holding the cows of their employers on grass
until such time as they could be cleared and shipped. In their leisure
hours they swarmed the streets of Caldwell. Added to these were
the trail-herd crews from the whole Southwest, among them many
Mexican peelers with their tremendous hats, silver-mounted saddles
and three-inch silver rowels.
Four troops of cavalry were camped along the line and troopers
mingled with the crowds. Caldwell, the last of the old-time cow
towns, had now entered upon her last wild fling. It was now
definitely known that in three months’ time the Cherokee Strip would
be thrown open for settlement and the homeless from all corners of
the country were already beginning to assemble. For weeks on end
there was not a room available in town and men spread their
campbeds in vacant lots. Eating places were crowded to capacity
and new restaurants were being opened up in frame shacks or even
in tents wherever vacant sites were available. As always, where
business is rushing and money freely flowing, there were symptoms
of a boom. It was openly predicted that the settling of the country to
the southward would throw Caldwell into the enviable position of the
one logical metropolis of the whole Southwest.
Cowmen cursed the troopers, seeing in them the visible symbol of
that authority which had excluded them from their rightful domain.
The unowned lands were thoroughly patrolled and detachments of
cavalry were camped at strategic points throughout the Strip. It was
this latter circumstance which had upset Carver’s calculations. He
had planned with Bart Lassiter to hold a bunch of six hundred of
Younger’s three-year-old steers on the forbidden range for a period
of one year, receiving a substantial proportion of the increased price
which they would bring as four-year-olds. Both Carver and Nate
Younger had seen the futility of the attempt. Others had entertained
similar ideas but had abandoned them as events moved swiftly past
the farthest bounds of their previous comprehensions and rendered
their hopes untenable.
Carver, once assured that his plans for the immediate future must be
relinquished, cast about for some substitute occupation which might
prove equally remunerative. He rode away from Younger after their
mutual decision, spinning his lone coin into the air and catching it as
his horse jogged slowly across the range.
“It appears as if it’s going to be real difficult to provide you with all
the company I’d counted on,” he said. “Time is skipping right along
and here you are—occupying my pocket all by yourself without even
one mate to jingle up against. Only last week I had it all mapped out
to gather in several thousand of your sort to keep you company. But
that plan’s flown out the window and here I am without one idea to
work on.”
He turned along the south line fence of the Half Diamond H leases.
“Little lonely dollar, you must mount up to a million,” he asserted.
“But we’ve got to insert our wedge somewheres right soon and start
to mounting.”
His eye traveled along the fence line to where it disappeared in the
distance, and suddenly he turned and rode back to where the outfit
was camped and sought out the boss.
“About those fences being ordered down,” he said. “What
arrangements have you made?”
“Not any,” Nate admitted. “What with gathering eight thousand head
of steers and shipping ’em I haven’t taken time off to worry over
fences. We’ll have the last steer headed north in a few days now.
Then I’ll see about scrapping fences—or let the squatters tear ’em
down when they come in to roost.”
“It won’t leave you short-handed now if Bart Lassiter and I lay off,”
Carver suggested. “You lend me a team and wagon from the home
place and we’ll snatch out those fences for what material there is in
them.”
“The fence is yours,” Younger agreed. “Provided the other half-
owners of any stretches are agreeable. Go get it.”
Lassiter assented instantly when Carver stated the proposition.
“I always did feel suffocated in a fence country,” he announced. “I
was always so much opposed to seeing every fence go up that I
figure it will be a real entertaining pastime to help tear ’em down.”
This spirit of optimism lasted during the two days required to hunt
up other part owners of certain stretches and get their endorsement
of the plan, his enthusiasm lasting through the first few days of
actual work. They were out before sunrise and knocked off after
dark, pulling posts, coiling wire and freighting the materials to the
Half Diamond H home ranch. His interest lagged but he did not
openly rebel until after two thirds of the fence had been salvaged.
Carver roused him one morning for breakfast and Bart blinked
sleepily at the smoky lantern that lighted the sod hut in which they
had stayed overnight.
“We’ve got enough wire piled up to enclose the State of Texas,” he
stated. “There’s thirty miles of three-wire fence we’ve collected if
there’s a foot. That’s twenty-nine miles more than both of us will
ever need. Let’s leave the rest of her set.”
“But we contracted to scrap the whole of it,” Carver dissented.
“Another week will see us through.”
“A week!” Lassiter moaned. “I just can’t face it, honest. I’ve
reformed. I hope I hang if I ever extract another staple.”
“A week’s not such a long stretch,” Carver urged.
“Donald, I’ll break down and cry if you lead me up to just one other
measly fence post,” Lassiter announced. “You take my half and let
me off. I’ve got to amble over to Crowfoot’s and draw my spring
wages. Then, too, I’d ought to collect Molly and get her settled
somewhere in Caldwell. She’s all alone over on Turkey Creek.”
“I’ll pay you thirty dollars for what time you’ve put in—sometime
when I’ve got it—and take over your wire and finish the job myself,”
Carver at last conceded. “You can locate Molly in my little plant in
Caldwell; only mark me now! There’ll be no more balancing of
Cherokee rations conducted on the premises. I’ll remonstrate with
you at some length if I catch you at it again.”
Carver worked on alone and at the end of another ten days he
viewed with satisfaction the numerous coils of fence wire and the
great stack of posts neatly corded behind the deserted buildings of
the Half Diamond H.
“At present that assortment is only wood and iron,” he said. “But it’s
a real imposing pile nevertheless, and I can likely convert it into
dollars when the squatters come romping in.”
When he rode into Caldwell he was amazed at the swift transitions.
The incoming transients had trebled the population in the last two
months. Being unprepared for this sweeping change he was all the
more prepared to lend a willing ear to the prediction that Caldwell
was to become the metropolis of the whole Southwest. There was a
conversational boom in progress and Carver, looking upon the
crowded, teeming streets, the numerous tent houses everywhere in
evidence and the new frame shacks in the process of construction
through the town, divined the possibility of actual boom days just
ahead. He rode out to his little frame cabin to visit with Molly
Lassiter whom he had seen but three times in as many months. He
found neither Bart nor Molly at home but the door was unlocked and
he entered.
The two rooms of the bare little shack had been transformed. Two
worn Navajo rugs were spread on the pine-board floor and soft
curtain materials were draped across the windows.
“She’s made it all homelike,” Carver said. “Just with a touch here and
there. What couldn’t she do with things to work with and a real
house to operate on? We’ll give her one some day if only she’ll
agree.” He drew forth the lucky dollar and consulted it. “Let’s you
and me hatch out a new idea,” he invited. “We can’t be loafing on
the job.”
While the idea was hatching he sat peering abstractedly through the
doorway, rousing from his reverie only when he found his gaze
riveted on the girl as she turned into the pathway leading to the
house. Molly halted suddenly when within a few feet of the door, as
she saw him sitting just inside it.
“I hadn’t expected you this soon,” she said.
“Bart told me the fence job would keep you another month at least.
Did you decide not to finish it?”
“It’s salvaged to the last strand of wire,” he returned. “I speeded up
some so as to have it over with.”
“I’m sorry Bart quit,” she said. “You see he won’t stick at anything.”
“Don’t know as I blame him,” said Carver. “The last few days I’ve
developed a downright aversion to the sight of fence wire myself.
Glad to see me?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll be out of here and established in a room of my
own so that you can have your house by to-morrow, Don. I’ve been
waiting for the present occupants to vacate.”
“You stay right on here,” he insisted. “I won’t be needing it.”
“Thanks, Don, but I can’t do that,” she said. “I have to stop floating
and find some nook of my own. I can’t follow Bart around any
longer. For three years now we’ve drifted from one spot to the next;
sometimes in line camps; more frequently in some rooming house in
any town where we happened to be, always knowing that wherever
it was it wouldn’t be home for long. I didn’t mind at first, for I was
trying to keep Bart away from Milt and Noll; but they always turn up
again and he follows them off. I’d love even a sod house if only I
could call it my own and know I wouldn’t have to move out on an
hour’s notice. I’m sick of gypsying. I want to feel settled—feel that
I’m attached!”
He reached over and rested a hand on her shoulder.
“I know, Honey,” he said. “So do I. That’s exactly my own frame of
mind. The best way all round is for you and me to get attached and
settle. Won’t you?”
She felt that he had failed to grasp the fact of what a sense of
permanency would mean to her after the nomadic existence she had
followed for the past few years.
“Listen, Molly,” he said, divining something of her thoughts. “It’s not
the way a man says a thing but the way he means it that really
counts. And I was meaning that a lot.”
“But you don’t even know to-day what you’re going to do to-
morrow,” she said. “It would be only exchanging one state of
gypsying for another. Don’t you see that?”
He did, at least, see that the moment was not right and he settled
back into his chair and twisted a cigarette.
“You always lean to the dark side of things,” he accused. “Most
complaints I’ve heard about family strife was occasioned because
menfolks generally were so occupied with business that they didn’t
spend much time at home. Now with me not having any special
business it would leave me free to put in most of my time around
the house. There’s that advantage.”
“Yes,” she laughed. “There’s that. Sometimes, Don, I almost wish
you really were a settled sort of a soul; but that time will never be.”
Carver crooned softly:

“Oh, I’m a rolling rambler,”

Said the speeding tumbleweed.
“The prairies are my race track,
The wild wind is my steed.

“I never cease my roaming;

I’m always hard to catch,
But the pumpkin stays forever
In the same old garden patch.

“But I’d rather be a wild, wild weed

Than a sluggish yellow squash:”

“And I’d so much rather be a pumpkin than the wildest of all wild
weeds,” she said. “There’s only that little difference between the two
of us.”
“Tell me,” he urged, “what sort of a quiet home life do you pine for
most? Does your preference run to a cottage in town or stray off
towards a dwelling in the country?”
“The country,” she returned. “Somewhere on a farm where I could
watch things grow.”
“That’s my choice too,” he confessed. “Whatever business I settle on
will have to be at the source of things. Like you said, I want to
watch things grow—calves or crops, it don’t much matter which. I’ll
start casting about for a farm right off.”
After leaving her he mingled with the swarming crowds on the main
street. The conversational boom was in full swing and he heard it
discussed on all sides. There were but few who dissented from the
general prediction that an era of great prosperity lay ahead for
Caldwell. Carver put in three active hours, then sought out Nate
Younger to draw his back wages for the spring work, a sum totalling
a trifle less than two hundred dollars.
He found Younger in his room at the hotel in conference with Joe
Hinman. The two old cowmen had pooled resources and formed the
Plains Land and Cattle Company, Younger having purchased
grasslands adjoining Hinman’s holdings. They planned to make the
new concern a beef ranch straight through instead of a breeding
ranch as now operated by Hinman.
“We’ll be the biggest outfit in this end of the State,” Hinman was
predicting, as Carver thrust his head through the door. “Come in,
son, and set on the bed. The Plains Land and Cattle Company is
going to be the biggest of the lot.”
“I’m counting some on organizing a similar concern myself,” said
Carver. “Maybe a trifle smaller than yours just at first; and in order
to make the start I’ve got to borrow somewhat. I’m owning a nine-
hundred-dollar equity in that bunch of calves we made the deal for
last spring. How about your lending me eight hundred against it?”
“But that would leave you owing me thirteen hundred on the bunch,”
Hinman objected. “And right now those calves wouldn’t fetch that
price on the market.”
“Set the date for maturity of the loan far enough ahead so they’ll
grow into it,” Carver suggested. “Before it comes due they’ll have
advanced way beyond that figure. Then if I don’t pay up you can
close me out at a profit.”
“Now ain’t that a fact!” Hinman exclaimed admiringly. “There was a
time, Buddy, when I marvelled at your ability to shed a season’s
wages overnight. It does look now as if you might also learn me a
few tricks on the reverse side of things. You’ve got a business mind.”
He produced a check book and a stub of pencil.
“How long do you want this loan to run?” Carver asked.
“According to your own figures the longer it runs the more I stand to
make,” said Hinman. “So I don’t know as it makes much difference.
It does appear as if you’d let me in on a pretty good thing—so set
the date yourself.”
“One year from to-day,” Carver decided.
“What do you aim to do with all this money?” Hinman inquired.
“Setting out to break the bank in the Gilded Eagle?”
“I’ve purchased a building,” Carver proclaimed.
“You’ve which?” said Hinman. “What building?”
“Pirie’s place; down in the next block,” Carver informed. “It’s got a
grocery business on the ground floor and the grocer’s wife rents
room upstairs.”
He extended a contract and Hinman perused it, observing that
Carver had agreed to purchase at three thousand dollars, paying six
hundred down and a like amount each year.
“I’d rented my little shack,” Carver explained. “Only to find that there
wasn’t a room for rent in town; not one! It was either buy a place of
my own or set up.”
“It’ll save you considerable room rent,” Hinman agreed, “you being
in town easy three nights out of the year. But what’s the final
object?”
“Each season those calves will be worth more and I can borrow
enough additional against them to meet the payments,” Carver
pointed out. “Meantime the grocer pays me thirty dollars rent money
every month, which gives me a steady income to live off till such
time as I can turn the building at a profit and buy a tract of land to
run those calves on.”
“I didn’t know your ambitions run toward owning land,” said Hinman.
“But now since I’ve come into so much surplus fence wire,” Carver
explained, “it looks like the only economical thing to do is to acquire
a piece of land to set inside it.”
“Son, you’ve mapped out a self-operating business,” Nate Younger
congratulated. “All you have to do now is to stand back and watch it
ripen. Meantime why don’t you read up on Belgian hares?”
He handed over the sum due for back wages and Carver studied the
two checks reflectively.
“This surplus now,” he said. “I was figuring to put into horses.
They’ll almost give you horses nowadays just to come and drive
them off. If you don’t mind my throwing a few head up on your
range, I’ll buy up a little bunch and pay you fifty cents a head for
pasture fees, agreeing to get ’em off your grass November first.”
“We’d better let him put ’em on, Joe,” Nate agreed. “It’s that much
more security for that loan.”
Even under favorable circumstances the horse market was poor and
now with all those recently combed from the Strip as a surplus,
horses could be purchased at one’s own price. For a week Carver
rode early and late. The average run of Indian ponies were selling
for less than five dollars a head but it was not this class of horse
flesh which Carver sought. He selected young mares and geldings,
ranging from eleven to twelve hundred pounds in weight, which
would serve for light work stock, and eventually he drove fifty head
well toward the northern extremity of Hinman’s range. They had cost
him an average of ten dollars apiece and he had paid cash for half of
them, issuing verbal promises to pay for the rest. He rode back into
Caldwell with something over a hundred dollars in his pocket.
The equipment of all the deserted ranches in the unowned lands
was banked up in Caldwell. From the Coldstream Pool Carver
purchased ten sets of harness at fifteen dollars a set and three
heavy wagons at forty dollars each, paying his last hundred down
and his personal note for the balance.
Hinman witnessed this last transaction.
“Considering the size of your original stake you’ve stretched it to
cover considerable territory in the last few months,” he said.
“It’s only my surplus I’m spreading out so thin,” Carver explained.
“My capital is still intact.” He exhibited his silver dollar. “My one rule
of life is never to impair my principal.”
“Fine,” Hinman encouraged. “That’s conservative business. I was
satisfied you’d play it slow and safe.”
“Now if you’ll do me just one more little kindness I’ll be grateful;”
Carver said. “You and Nate engage Freel in conversation up on the
corner where he’s standing and inside of five minutes I’ll saunter up
and direct the course of the interview.”
“I’d like to hear it,” Hinman said. “We’ll detain him.”
Carver joined them before the appointed space of time had elapsed.
“Freel, I’ve been feeling real contrite about resisting arrest a few
weeks back,” Carver said. “I’ve decided to surrender and stand trial.”
The deputy marshal glanced apprehensively at the two old cowmen.
“Oh—that,” he said. “Why, I’ve let that matter drop. That’s all
closed.”
“And it was real accommodating of you to close it,” Carver returned,
“but I can’t stand by and see you get in trouble on my account.
Orders are orders, and you had yours. That’s the reason I wrote this
letter to Art Webb.” He tendered an unsealed letter to the deputy.
Webb was Freel’s chief, the head United States marshal of the
district. “Webb is a good friend of mine and I’m demanding that he
inform me just why he sent an order down here to you to pick me
up. That will put you in the clear for not rearresting me since that
night I escaped.”
Carver turned to his two friends.
“You’ve both known Webb for years,” he said. “Did you write him like
I asked you?”
“It clear slipped my mind,” Hinman apologized. “I’ll get it off this
evening.”
“Mine goes on the same mail,” Nate concurred. “We’ll sift this thing
right to the bottom layer and clear Freel of any possible blame.”
“Freel will be on my side himself if it comes to a showdown,” Carver
asserted. “He’ll be the first to testify that I’d been away from home
for a solid month prior to the time that charge was lodged. Some
one’s tried to deal me from the bottom, and between the four of us
we’ll discover who it is.”
Freel laughed and slapped Carver on the shoulder.
“Matter of fact, that inquiry was for another party, wanting to know
if he’d turned up in these parts,” he said. “I went and got the names
mixed. The joke’s on me—likewise the drinks, and I’ll buy right now.”
He slowly tore up the letter to Webb.
“And here I’ve been worried almost sick,” Carver said. “It’s a big
relief to have it all cleared up. I still owe you fifty on that little bet.
Here’s an agreement to pay in ninety days, just as an evidence of
good faith.”
He handed Freel a folded paper and the marshal frowned as he read
it.
“You’ll notice I stated why I owed it,” Carver amplified. “You’ve
always played square with the boys—and there’s maybe a half dozen
that’s willing to step forth and declare how you’ve always met them
halfway the same as you did with me.”
During the next hour Carver accosted a dozen intimate
acquaintances and told each in turn, quite confidentially, that there
was a rumor afloat to the effect that Freel was about to resign as
deputy marshal and that Mattison was making application for the
post.
“By this time to-morrow every man in Caldwell will have commented
on this matter to Mattison and Freel,” Carver said to Hinman. “Not
because they take any special interest in it but just to make
conversation. But the principals, being only human and therefore
self-centered, will decide that the whole town is breathless over their
affairs. Mattison will feel his ambition mounting and Freel will
suspect that there’s been a fire kindled under him. Now if only you
and Nate will put in your pull with Webb to give Mattison the
appointment, it looks as if things would come out right.”
He rented an extra saddlehorse and invited Molly to join him in an
afternoon ride. They jogged out past the stockyards where
cowhands prodded unwilling steers through the loading chutes, on
beyond the sound of the wheezing switch engine and the rattle and
smash of cars, then angled westward through the quarantine belt
where riders guarded thousands of head of cows. In the gathering
dusk they rode out on the point of a lofty knoll which afforded a
view throughout a great expanse of country.
“Have a last look at all this, Molly girl,” Carver said, extending an
arm to the south. “There’s yesterday.”
The green summer range stretched away to the far horizon with
never a plow furrow to break it. Two trail herds had been bedded for
the night at widely separate points. A third, whose trail boss had
evidently made a hard day’s drive to reach the quarantine belt in
hope of an earlier clearance and shipping date than that accorded to
his slower fellows, passed below the two on the knoll and plodded
northward. Two men rode the points, the right and left forward
extremities of the herd, guiding the foremost animals on the chosen
course. One man skirted either flank and two others rode the
“drags” in the rear of the herd to press forward any stragglers as the
weary cattle drifted slowly toward the chuck wagon which was
stationed a mile or more ahead and where the rest of the trail-herd
crew had already gathered.
“That’s yesterday, girl,” Carver repeated. “Remember all this as you
see it now; the green range and the trail herds coming up from the
south. Have a last look at it—for here comes to-morrow,” and he
pointed off to the northward.
Miles away across the quarantine belt a slender ragged line extended
either way beyond the range of their vision. A thousand ribbons of
white smoke writhed aloft and glowed in pallid outline against the
darkening sky. For two hundred miles along the line, wherever water
was available, there was one continuous camp of squatters, and still
the land seekers increased at the rate of two thousand families a
week, all the landless of a mighty nation gathering here to
participate in what would go down in history as the Cherokee Run,
the most frenzied stampede of the century.
Both watchers felt a sudden tightening of the throat as they gazed
upon the scene, their feelings much the same but occasioned by
different viewpoints. Carver’s sympathy was with the riders who
handled the cows on the near side of that continuous camp, men
who, like himself, had loved the old open range, the range that was
passing for all time. The girl’s heart went out to those homeless
hosts outside the line, for she herself was homeless and could
understand the longing which had brought them to this spot to join
in a mad and desperate rush on the chance that they might be
among the fortunate locaters who should be first to drive their
stakes on any scrap of ground which would constitute a home.
Perhaps they too were tired of gypsying, she reflected, and yearned
for some one spot which they might call their own.
He pointed to the tiny scattering specks that were riders moving
from point to point, then on beyond them to that stolid line.
“Yonder come the pumpkins to crowd out the tumbleweeds,” he
said.
The soft summer night shut down and transformed the pale smoke
columns into a tortuous trail of twinkling fires which extended for
two hundred miles along the line.
“We’d best be going now,” the girl said at last. “There’s a fifteen-mile
ride ahead. I’m glad you brought me here to see all this. It means
one thing to you, Don, and exactly the opposite to me. But it’s
something we won’t forget.”
“No,” he said. “We’ll not forget.”
They rode on in silence, the girl occupied with her thoughts of the
homeless legions who would soon have homes, Carver content with
the mere fact of her nearness. When he decided that this
thoughtfulness had claimed her for too long a time he recounted his
transactions of the past few days.
“About those responsibilities I promised you I’d acquire,” he said,
“I’m taking them on rapid. In addition to both residence and
business property here in town, I’m owning a considerable number
of horses and a hundred head of calves, not to mention harness,
wagons and a few score miles of good barbed wire. I’m
accumulating responsibilities so fast that there’s times I can’t be real
sure whether they’re mine or some one’s else.”
 VI
A stray steer moved out of a coulee and bawled lustily for company.
The animal traveled at a fast walk, occasionally breaking into an
awkward trot but halting frequently to loose a plaintive bawl.
“He’s lonesome, that old fellow,” Carver surmised. “And hunting hard
for company.”
As he watched the animal he speculated idly as to the probable
number of stray steers scattered throughout the Strip. Always there
was a certain small percentage overlooked in the round-up, those
feeding in choppy timbered breaks or bedded in scrub-oak tangles
and missed by the circle riders who covered such stretches. These
missing ones were caught in subsequent roundups, so it mattered
little. But on this occasion they could be charged off, Carver
reflected, for there would be no future round-up. The owners could
not afford to outfit parties to cover such a great stretch of country
for what few were left, yet Carver estimated that there would be
well over a hundred steers still ranging the rougher parts of the
twelve thousand square miles of the unowned lands. He pulled up
his horse and looked back at the bawling steer, then drew forth his
silver dollar and addressed it.
“An idea just hit me,” he asserted. “You and I don’t believe in taking
chances. Conservative, slow and safe, like Hinman said; that’s us
every time. But we’re going to make one more little investment in
tumbleweeds before we settle down.”
A few hours later he went into conference with Nate Younger.
“If you’ll get most of the brand owners that operated in the western
half of the Strip to sign an agreement whereby I get half the market
price of any of their stray steers I bring into Caldwell I’ll outfit a
combing party and go in after them,” Carver offered.
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