United States v. Devil's Den Consol. Oil Co.

These suits are brought by the government for decrees that the several tracts of land described in the bills, amounting in the aggregate to about 2% sections, together with their mineral contents, are the property of the United States, free from any claims of the defendants, or any of them, and restraining the de *974 fendants from trespassing thereon, or extracting the oil therefrom, and for an accounting. The legal title to the property involved is in the United States, and except one-half section is included in the Presidential withdrawal order of September 27, 1909. The land is chiefly valuable for its oil contents, and the larger area thereof is now and has been for some time operated by the defendants as oil-producing property, and large quantities of oil have been and are now being extracted therefrom.

No discovery of oil on any of the lands had been made at the date of the withdrawal order referred to, nor was any one in possession of any part thereof at that time actually engaged in drilling or prospecting for oil. In the spring of 1907, however, divers parties entered upon the lands in controversy and a large number of other tracts in the same vicinity, and posted…