United States v. Northern Pac. Ry. Co.

BOURQUIN, District Judge.

In this suit to partially cancel a land patent, perhaps without precedent and with consent of both parties, certain interveners, claiming superior right to the land, are admitted to joinder with the plaintiff, United States, and make common cause with it. The facts material to the decision are that the land is part of section 9, township 1 south, range 4 west, Montana, and within the primary limits of the grant of 1864 (13 Stat. 365) to defendant of all odd-numbered sections not mineral other than iron or coal.

For many years intense controversies raged between…