This is an action to determine the rights of the parties to mining ground in Lawrence county, in the territory of Dakota. In April, 1878, one of the defendants below and of the appellants here, John Noonan, asserted ownership to a tract of mineral land in that county, bearing the name of the 'Bobtail Lode.' It was of great value, and he desired to obtain a patent of the United States for it. He therefore pursued the course prescribed in such cases by sections 2325 and 2326 of the Revised Statutes; and on the twentieth of that month filed the necessary application in the proper land-office of the district. At the same time Henry Lackey and eight other persons asserted ownership of mining ground known as the 'Caledonia Lode,' which conflicted with the Bobtail claim, as alleged, to the extent of three acres and fifty-seven hundredths of an acre. They, therefore, in May, 1878, filed in the land-office an adverse claim to the application of Noonan, and in June following brought the present action to determine their respective rights to the disputed ground.
Subsequently these adverse claimants sold their interest in the Caledonia lode to Thomas Bell, of San Francisco; and he conveyed the property to the Caledonia Gold Mining Company, a corporation organized under the laws of California. Upon application to the court, this company was substituted as plaintiff in the action, without prejudice to the rights of the defendants. An amended complaint was thereupon filed in its name, and substituted for the original one. It alleges the incorporation of the plaintiff under the laws of California; its compliance with the laws of Dakota relating to foreign corporations, to enable it to transact business, and to acquire, hold, and dispose of property in the territory; the transfer of the Caledonia lode to Thomas Bell; and his conveyance of the property to the company. It also sets forth the original location of the lode by four of the original plaintiffs, on the twenty-first of June, 1876, and their actual possession thereof afterwards, and that they and the others of the original plaintiffs, who had become interested with them, made, on the fifteenth of March, 1877, an additional and supplementary claim and location of the Caledonia lode, and on the same day caused a certificate or notice of the original claim and location, as well as of the additional and supplementary claim and location, to be recorded in the mining records of the district.
The amended complaint further alleges that from its original location in June, 1876, the plaintiff or its grantors have been in the actual and continuous possession of the Caledonia claim, and every part of it, and in accordance with the laws of the United States and of the territory of Dakota, and the local rules and regulations of miners in the district, and have expended, in labor and money, more than $5,000 in its development and improvement; that the defendant Noonan claims an interest in a portion of its mining ground, to the extent of three acres and forty-seven hundredths of an acre, by virtue of an alleged location of a quartz mining claim, call the 'Bobtail Lode,' made by his predecessors in interest in February, 1876, which is invalid and a could upon its title to the Caledonia lode. It prays that the defendant may answer and set out particularly his claim to that portion of the Caledonia lode which conflicts with the Bobtail lode, and the nature of it, and that it may be adjudged that he has no estate or interest therein, and that he be enjoined from asserting any right or title to it.
The defendant in his answer denies the allegations of the complaint, except as they are afterwards admitted, and specifically any knowledge of the incorporation of the plaintiff, or of its compliance with the laws of Dakota in regard to foreign corporations; admits his claim to be the owner of the Bobtail lode, his application for a patent, and the adverse action of the former plaintiffs; and sets up the discovery and location of that lode on the twenty-fourth of February, 1876, by parties through whom he derives his interest. A replication traverses some of the matters set up in the answer, and asserts an abandonment and forfeiture of the interests of the original locators of the Bobtail lode.