Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ For we should conjucture, if it were material, that in this case the deeds under which the interveners held were in a form that was usual and expected in that place.
The statute does not deny the equal protection of the laws, even if it should be confined to Spanish and Mexican grants. For there very well may have been grounds for the discrimination in the history of those grants and the greater probability of an attempt to revive stale claims, as is explained by the supreme court of New Mexico. There is no other matter that we think proper for reconsideration here. ”

“ It only remains to consider whether there is anything in the Constitution of the United States to prevent the statute from doing its work. We limit our inquiry to its operation in the present case, and do not speculate as to whether other cases could be put in which the letter of some parts of the law could not be sustained. As applied to the interveners, the statute simply enacts that possession for ten years of the front and cultivable portion of a strip under a deed carrying the whold of it back to the ridge of the Puerco shall give title to the whole. ”

“ If he chooses to wait ten years without bringing suit, he is not in a position to complain of the consequences,-at least, not when, as in the present case, the deeds do not purport to convey more than a reasonable man probably would have anticipated. ”