Gerard

This is an appeal from a judgment dismissing the complaint of two Blackfeet Indians seeking to establish title to land held by them under trust patents issued to them on land previously allotted to them. The dismissal was on the ground that the United States is a necessary party and that its wards have no power so to join it.

The complaint alleges the land covered by the trust patent is in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The plaintiffs are members of that tribe and the trust patent was made under the Treaty of 1887, 25 Stat. 113 , with that tribe and the Allotment Act of February 8, 1887, 24 Stat. 388 . These trust patents contained the provision that the land described as held by the United States “for the period of twenty-five years, in trust for the sole use and benefit of the said Indian and at the expiration of said period the United States will convey the same by patent to said Indian in fee, discharged of said trust and free from all charge and encumbrance whatsoever.”

*952 The date of the trust patent is February 28, 1918. The complaint further alleges that less than four months later, on June 11, 1918, without the Indians’ application or consent, an unrestricted fee…