Bente

Action to recover the sum of fifteen hundred dollars received by the defendant to and for the use and benefit of the plaintiffs. Judgment in favor of the defendant, from which judgment the plaintiffs appeal.

An amended complaint was filed at the time of the trial and by stipulation all of the allegations thereof were deemed to be denied. So far as pertinent to the questions presented here, the material facts alleged by the plaintiffs were that prior to the twenty-third day of April, 1918, when said money was paid over by the plaintiffs to the defendant, the defendant had represented that he was a mining man with knowledge of mines and minerals and a prospector, and that the plaintiffs believed the said statements; that the plaintiffs, and each of them, were absolutely ignorant of mines and minerals or anything connected therewith; that shortly prior to the twenty-third day of April, 1918, defendant informed the plaintiffs that he had options upon mining claims and sent a plan of said mining claims showing that they were intimately connected with the Cuddybaek quicksilver mine; that the defendant informed the plaintiffs that a one-fifth interest in the said Cuddybaek mine had been…