Herbert

Action to quiet title. The complaint is in the usual form. The answer sets forth that plaintiff and his wife had executed to defendant Graham a certain oil lease whereby they granted to him all the oil, gas, coal, sulphur, shale, and other minerals in and under the premises demised, and that this lease had been assigned to the appellants, who had entered upon the property and expended over $14,000 in sinking oil-wells, and had paid plaintiff the sum of $50 per quarter up to the thirty-first day of March, 1921, the date when drilling was commenced, as provided for in the lease. By an amended answer they allege that since they commenced drilling on the property they had sunk a well to a depth of 600 feet, and it then had to be abandoned, as it was destroyed by an earthquake, and they thereafter sank a second well to a depth of some 590 feet, and in the sinking thereof had used due diligence, and had continued work until December 31, 1921, when they were compelled to stop drilling by reason of rains, storms, and impassable roads, but that they had left their rig, tools, and machinery upon the property and intended to resume operations; that plaintiff knew of these facts, and never…