Knickerbocker

This was an action in ejectment, tried by the court below with a jury; the plaintiff, who is the plaintiff in error here, suing to recover an undivided one-fourth interest in a certain» mining claim, situate in the Fairbanks mining district of Alaska, containing about 160 acres, which was located by an association of eight persons, of whom the plaintiff in error was one, one S. Lapiana another, and the defendants to the action, and parties to whose interest they have succeeded, were the others. The validity of the location is not in question; both sides to the controversy claiming thereunder. In addition to his undivided one-eighth interest, claimed as one of the original locators, the plaintiff claimed the undivided interest of Lapiana, from whom he received a deed purporting to convey that interest shortly before instituting the action. Of the defendants, Halla claimed six-sixteenths, Sedlacek one-sixteenth, and the Solomon Mining & Trading Company nine-sixteenths, alleged in the answer to have been acquired by that company by deed from John A. Webb; one-sixteenth of which being conveyed to Webb by Halla, and eight-sixteenths being acquired by Webb through the doing by him of…