This is an action to recover possession of certain mining ground in Lake county, Colorado. The plaintiffs in the court below, the defendants in error here, assert title to the premises under a patent of the United States for what is known as the 'Gilt Edge Claim,' of which they are a part. In the original complaint they asserted title by conveyance from the original locations. A patent to them having been subsequently granted, they filed an amended complaint setting up its issue, and that it conveys to them a fee-simple title.
The complaint avers that the defendant, the Iron Silver Mining Company, on the twenty-fifth of June, 1882, by means of drifts, inclines, and tunnels, entered without right upon a portion of the Gilt Edge claim, which it has since wrongfully withheld from the plaintiffs, to their damage of $50,000; and that it has excavated, carried away, and converted to its own use, since such entry, gold, silver, and lead ores belonging to them, of the value of $50,000. They, therefore, pray judgment for the premises, and damages for their wrongful detention, and for the ores taken.
The defendant in its answer denies the several allegations of the complaint, and sets up as an affirmative defense that, under a patent of the United States, bearing date May 24, 1877, it is the owner in fee, and entitled to the possession, of a surface lode mining claim, also situated in Lake county, Colorado, called the 'Stone Claim,' containing 9.18 acres of land, more or less, and of a vein, lode, or ledge therein, extending the length of the claim from north to south 1,500 feet, throughout its entire depth, although it enters adjoining lands; that the vein, lode, or ledge contains iron, lead, and silver in large quantities; that the top, apex, and outcrop of it are found in the surface claim throughout its entire extent; that its true strike is north and south, with a dip to the east at an angle of 15 degrees below the plane of the horizon; that the vein, lode, or ledge on its dip, within vertical planes drawn downward, with its end lines continued in their own direction,-that is, in the direction of the dip,-passes through and beyond the east vertical side line of the surface claim and location into and under the Gilt Edge surface claim; and the defendant admits that underneath the surface of the Gilt Edge claim it has followed and mined upon the Stone vein, lode, or ledge; and avers that, by reason of the facts above set forth, it had the right so to do; and denies that it has otherwise interfered with the Gilt Edge claim, or any part of it.
The plaintiffs in their reply deny the material allegations of the answer. By stipulation the case was tried by the court without the intervention of a jury. On the trial the plaintiffs produced in evidence a patent of the United States to them for the Gilt Edge claim, in the usual form of patent for lode mining claims, and the defendant admitted that they were invested with the title to the property which the patent conveyed; that it had entered underneath the surface of that claim at a point east of the Stone surface claim; and was engaged in mining and in carrying away lead and silver ores when the action was commenced.
It was agreed that plat 'A' (given below) correctly represents the shape and relative positions of the Gilt Edge mining claim, and of the Stone mining claim, and that the lines on the figures of the Stone claim, from No. 5 to 6 and from 1 to 14, are the two end lines of the surface claim, so called by the locator thereof, and in the plat accompanying the application for the patent. It was also agreed that plat 'B' (given below) is a correct copy of the plat of the Gilt Edge claim contained in the patent thereof, which also shows its relative position to the Stone claim, the latter being marked 'Sur. No. 217.'