The court below sustained a demurrer to the complaint in this case and dismissed it. The question for decision, therefore, is the sufficiency of that pleading. Upon its face it shows that the action was brought at the request of the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissio'ner of Indian Affairs and under the direction of the Attorney General. It alleges that, acting in accordance with Act Cong. July 4, 1884, c. 180, 23 Stat. 79 , 80, entitled “An act making appropriations for the current and contingent expenses of the Indian Department, and for fulfilling treaty stipulations with various Indian tribes, for the year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and eighty-five, and for other purposes,” the President of the United States did on May 1, 1886, by executive order set aside as an individual reservation in favor of and for one Quo-lock-ons, an Indian and a ward of the government, a certain specifically described tract of 640 acres, more or less, situate in Okanogan county, state of Washington ; such land having been theretofore selected in accordance with the provisions of the act mentioned under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior and designated “Allotment No 7.” The complaint further alleges that the tract in question was prior to such allotment a portion of the Columbia Indian reservation theretofore set aside by executive order for the use and occupancy of Indians; that the aforesaid Quo-lock-ons was, at the time the said individual reservation was so set aside for him, a member of the Columbia tribe of Indians, and resided in the state of Washington on the said Columbia Indian reservation; that during the year 1890 the said Indian, Quo-lock-ons, died intestate, leaving as his only heirs two sons, named, respectively, Frank, alias Dominique, Te-kom-tarl-ken, and Sam Pierre; that thereafter the said Sam Pierre died intestate, without issue, leaving a widow, named Jennie, who is an Indian, and a member of the Columbia tribe of Indians, and then and now residing on the said reservation. The complaint further alleges that at all times heretofore the plaintiff was and still is the owner in fee simple and entitled to the immediate possession of the said specifically described tract of land, subject only to the rights of the said Frank, alias Dominique, Te-kom-tarlken, and the said Jennie, to use and occupy the same as an individual Indian reservation (and as wards of the plaintiff; that about the month of August, 1904, the defendant, without right or authority, entered upon and took possession of the said 640-acre tract of land, and ousted the said Frank, alias Dominique,' Te-kom-tarl-ken, and the'said Jennie, and the plaintiff therefiom, and ever since has unlawfully withheld, and still does unlawfully withhold, the possession thereof from the plaintiff and from the said Frank, alias Dominique *515 Te-kom-tarl-ken, and the said Jennie, to their damage in the sum of $2,000; that the value of the rents, issues, and profits of the premises from the month of August, 1904, and while the plaintiff has been excluded therefrom by the defendant, is $2,000. The prayer is for the recovery of the possession of the demanded premises, for the sum of $2,000 damages for the withholding of the possession thereof, for $2,000 as rents, issues, and profits of the land, and for the costs of the action.

It is manifest that the complaint states a perfect case, unless it be, as is contended on behalf of the defendant in error and as was held by the court below, that the plaintiff conveyed all of its right and title to the tract of land in controversy, and severed all of its relations to the Indians named, prior to the institution of the action. It is too late to talk about the original title to all of the lands in the United States having originally been in the Indians. The contrary was long ago settled. “Undoubtedly,” said the Supreme Court in the comparatively recent case of Jones v. Meehan, 175 U. S. 18 , 20 Sup. Ct. 4, 44 L. Ed. 49 , “the right of the Indian nations or tribes to their lands within the United States was a right of possession or occupancy only. The ultimate title in fee in those lands was in the United States; and the Indian title could not he conveyed by the Indians to any one but the United States, without the consent of the United States” — citing Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat. 543 , 5 L. Ed. 681 ; Cherokee Nation v Georgia, 5 Pet. 1, 17 , 8 L.Ed. 25 ; Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515 -544, 8 L. Ed. 483 ; Doe v. Wilson, 23 How. 457 -463, 16 L. Ed. 584 ; United States v. Cook, 19 Wall. 591 , 22 L. Ed. 210 ; United States v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375 -381, 6 Sup. Ct. 1109, 30 L. Ed. 228 , Buttz v. Northern Pacific R. Co., 119 U. S. 55 -67, 7 Sup. Ct. 100, 30 L. Ed. 330 .

But the courts, as well as Congress, are careful to guard and protect the Indians in all of their rights; the Supreme Court saying, in Jones v. Meehan, supra, in respect to a treaty then under consideration :

And in concluding a review of various of its previous decisions upon the subject the court, in the case from which the foregoing quotations have been taken, said:

The question, then, for decision here is: Did Congress by its act of July 4, 1884, above referred to, in ratifying and confirming an agreement entered into on the 7th of July, 1883, between the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and Chief Moses and other Indians of the Columbia and Colville reservations, in the then territory of Washington, part with the fee-simple title to the lands therein referred to, or leave the title thereto in the United States for the protection of the Indians in the exclusive use and occupation of such lands ? The agreement is as follows:

The act of Congress of July 4, 1884, provided as .follows ':

It is to be borne in mitid that at the time of the agreement of 1883, and at the time of the act of Congress in question, section 2079 of the Revised Statutes was in force, declaring that:

*518 The agreement of 1883 expressly recites that what Sar-sarp-kin asked for was—

And after the provisions with respect to Chief Moses and his people comes that so much relied upon by the defendant in error:

The agreement itself recites that it was entered into upon condition that Congress should confirm it, and necessarily onty to the extent that Congress should confirm it. Jones v. Meehan, 175 U. S. 1 , 20 Sup. Ct. 1, 44 L. Ed. 49 ; Tone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U. S. 553 , 23 Sup. Ct. 216, 47 L. Ed. 299 .

Looking at the agreement alone, we do not think that either party to it could have understood from its language that it was contemplated that the government was to sever its relations to such of the Indians as should remain on the Columbia reservation, any more than with those who should remove to the Colville reservation — to cease to he their guardian. On .the contrary, the agreement expressly recites that the Indians were to be “protected” by the government and by it guaranteed in the possession and ownership of the respective tracts of land to be set apart to them in severalty. How could the United States afford such protection but by remaining the guardian of the Indians'? We think it the plain meaning of the agreement itself that it should do so, and that no party thereto could have otherwise understood. That it was to the interest of the Indians that the government should retain such title and continue as the guardian of the Indians was recognized by the learned judge of the court below, where he said in his opinion that his conclusion had—

That Congress took the same view in respect to the interest of the Indians is, we think, manifest from its confirmatory act in question, in which it provided that, should the Indians then residing on the Columbia reservation elect within the time limited in the statute (one *519 year) to remain on that reservation, the Secretary of the Interior should cause the quantity of land, stipulated in the agreement to he allowed them, to be selected in as compact form as possible, “the same when so selected to he held for the exclusive use and occupation of said Indians.” To be “held” by whom? Obviously by the United States, their guardian, and to the end that they might be “protected” against the tricks and acts of designing persons. Such act on the part of Congress was in accord with its general policy upon the subject; and that such is its true meaning finds strong support in the fact that the act was so construed by President Cleveland in his executive order of May 1, 188(5, directing:

It is further confirmed by the interpretation put by Congress itself upon the act of July 4, 1884, by its subsequent acts of March 3, 1905 (33 Star. 1064, c. 1479), and of March 8, 1906 ( 34 Stat. 55 , c. 629), providing for the conveyance of the government title by patents to certain of the allottees under the agreement and act in question. Idle legislative construction of its own act is always potent. “If it can be gathered,” said the Supreme Court in U. S. v. Freeman, 3 How. 556 -564, 11 L. Ed. 724 , “from a subsequent statute in pari materia, what meaning the Legislature attached to the words of a former statute, they will amount to a legislative declaration of its meaning, and will govern the construction of the first statute.” And in the case of Philadelphia & E. R. Co. v. Catawissa R. Co., 53 Pa. 20 , the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania said:

That the acts of July 4, 1884, of March 3, 1905, and of March 8, 1906, above referred to, are in pari materia, is perfectly plain, for they relate to the same subject-matter and are parts of the same legislative purpose. In respect to such statutes, Sutherland, St. Const. 283, says:

And in Endlich on the Interpretation of Statutes, § 43, it is said:

*520 The judgment is reversed, and the case remanded to the court below, with directions to overrule the demurrer to the complaint, with leave to the defendant to answer.