Banta

This is a suit for an accounting, the plaintiff alleging a balance in his favor of about four thousand dollars. This, with other allegations, is denied by the defendants, who claim, in their answer, a balance in their favor of $3,135.20. There is also a cross-complaint, which sets up a deed of the plaintiff and wife to the defendant Wise, of date March 22, 1894, purporting to convey to the grantee the land described, but claimed by the defendants to be a mortgage given to secure indebtedness to Christy & Wise, and contemplated advances. Judgment was rendered in favor of the defendants named for the sum of $1,350, and for the foreclosure of the mortgage, as prayed for. From which and from the order denying his motion for a new trial the plaintiff appeals.

The accounts between the parties (which extend over a period of nearly five years) have their origin in an agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant John Wise, of date April 10,- 1891, by the terms of which there was delivered to the plaintiff by Wise sixteen hundred sheep, to be kept on shares by the former for the period of five years, or such less period as the latter might determine, the plaintiff to receive from the…