This suit was brought by the United States to restrain appellants and others from constructing or maintaining dams or reservoirs on the Milk river in the state of Montana, or in any manner preventing the water of the river or its tributaries from flowing to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.
An interlocutory order was granted, enjoining the defendants in the suit from interfering in any manner with the use by the reservation of 5,000 inches of the water of the river. The order was affirmed by the circuit court of appeals. 74 C. C. A. 666, 143, Fed. 740. Upon the return of the case to the circuit court, an order was taken pro confesso against five of the defendants. The appellants filed a joint and several answer, upon which and the bill a decree was entered making the preliminary injunction permanent. The decree was affirmed by the circuit court of appeals. 78 C. C. A. 546, 148 Fed. 684.
The allegations of the bill, so far as necessary to state them, are as follows: On the 1st day of May 1888, a tract of land, the property of the United States, was reserved and set apart 'as an Indian reservation as and for a permanent home and abiding place of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboing bands or tribes of Indians in the state (then territory) of Montana, designated and known as the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.' The tract has ever since been used as an Indian reservation and as the home and abiding place of the Indians. Its boundaries were fixed and defined as follows:
'Beginning at a point in the middle of the main channel of Milk river, opposite the mouth of Snake creek; thence due south to a point due west of the western extremity of the Little Rocky mountains; thence due east to the crest of said mountains at their western extremity, and thence following the southern crest of said mountains to the eastern extremity thereof; thence in a northerly direction in a direct line to a point in the middle of the main channel of Milk river opposite the mouth of People's creek; thence up Milk river, in the middle of the main channel thereof, to the place of beginning.'