Walton

This is an action in ejectment brought by the plaintiff in the court below, defendant in error here, to recover the possession of a certain placer mining claim (designated as claim No. 19), and consisting of 20 acres of land situated on Ophir creek, in Council City Recording District in Alaska. The case was tried before a jury, which found a verdict in favor of the defendant in error for the property described in the complaint, without any damages for the use and detention thereof. Judgment was rendered upon the verdict, from which judgment the plaintiffs in error have sued out a writ of error. They base their claim to the land upon a relocation of the ground, and the real merits of the case involve but one question, viz., whether the original locator, through whom the defendant in error deraigns its title, performed the annual assessment work upon the mining claim in controversy during the year 1899. Upon this point there is much conflict in the evidence. Lena Walton, on behalf of the plaintiffs in error, testified that early in December, 1899, she went upon the ground “and made a careful examination of the claim for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not any assessment work…