1. Indians—Suits for Allotment of Lands—Special Jurisdiction of Circuit Court.

Act Aug. 15, 1894 (28 Stat. 305), confers on a circuit court of the United States jurisdiction to decree relief to an Indian, entitled under the law to an allotment of certain lands, of which right he has been deprived by the rulings of the land department.

2. Same—Parties.

The provision of such act, that the decree of the court in favor of a claimant in a suit brought thereunder shall have the same effect as an allotment allowed and approved by the secretary of ttfe interior, is in effect a consent upon the part of the United States to be bound by such decree; and, where the suit involves simply a question of priority of right between two claimants, the United States is not a necessary party.

8. Same—Equities between Allottees—Priority of Selection and Improvement.

It was the intention of congress by Act March 3, 1885 (23 Stat. 340), •providing for the allotment of lands in severalty to members of the Walla Walla and other Indian tribes, which gave them the right to select the land they wished allotted to them, that, where more than one person selected the same land, the allotment should be made with reference to priority of selection, residence, and improvement, in accordance with the principle which has always been recognized in the disposition of public lands; and an Indian woman of the tribe, who selected and improved land with the consent of the tribal authorities, but whose right to an allotment was erroneously denied by the land department, cannot be deprived of her prior right to the land, so selected and improved, after such ruling has been reversed, by the fact that it had been subsequently allotted to another member of the tribe, who was put in possession, but who had full knowledge of her claim; nor is she estopped to assert her preferred right by the fact that she afterwards accepted a different allotment, with the understanding and on the assurance of the agent that it would not prejudice her right to claim that selected.

4. Same—Bight to Allotment—Besidence on Beservation.

Complainant, who was a full-blooded Indian woman of the Walla Walla tribe, did not forfeit her right to an allotment of land, in severalty under Act March 3, 1885 (23 Stat. 340), because at the time the census list of those entitled to allotments was made up she was residing with her family outside the reservation, but on lands which members of the tribe were accustomed to occupy for hunting, fishing, or pasturage purposes, and which they were given the right to so occupy by treaty with the United States.