by John Marshall Harlan

“ That the state of Oregon is authorized to locate and use in the construction of said road an additional amount of public lands, not previously reserved to the United States nor otherwise disposed of, and not exceeding ten miles in distance from it, equal to the amount reserved from the operation of this act in the first section of the same, to be selected in alternate odd sections as provided in section first of this act. ”

“ The conclusion is inevitable, unless it be adjudged that it was beyond the power it be Congress to appropriate for the Dalles Military Road lands within the general route, but not within any line of definite location established by the Northern Pacific railroad For the reasons stated in United States v. Oregon & C. R. Co. we cannot so adjudge. ”

“ Such proceedings were thereafter had on his application that the President on the 28th of September, 1884, issued a patent to him for that tract. Of the application of Wilcox for the purchase of the land, the Eastern Oregon Land Company had no notice, and therefore, even if its title were not good, it could not have availed itself of the privilege given by the act of Congress of March 3d, 1887 (24 Stat. at L. 556, chap. 376) to purchase the land.
The present suit was brought against Wilcox by the Eastern Oregon Land Company in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Oregon. ”