Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/452

 440 FEDERAIi SBPOBTBB. �« �tions of great value and importance which appear upon the face of the grant. What, tlien, ia the fair inference as to the intent of con- gress respecting the lands within the overlapping limita at the Junc- tion of the roads ? Could it have been the purpose of the grantor that the trustee should so administer the grant as to give the whole of the lands at that point, lying as they did within the limita as to both roads, to the short and comparatively unimportant line of road? Of what avail would it have been as to the great purposes of congress, and with respect to the considerations stipulated for by the United States, if by the aid of the lands granted the short line from the state line to Sioux City had been eompleted, and the main line left incom- plete at a point 80 or 90 miles east of the point of intersection? Most certainly we can arrive at no conclusion other than that it was the intention of congress to divide the lands at the point of intersec- tion between the two enterprises. What possible reason can there be, in the absence of express words, to impute to congress an inten- tion to give all the lands at the point of junction to one or the other of the two enterprises? Such a disposition of the lands would, in our judgment, do violence to the intent of the grantor, which, if pos- sible, ought to prevail. �As a matter of course, the intent of congress to give the lands to one or both roads was dependent upon the performance of the con- ditions of the grant; in other words, upon the construction of the roads according to the terms of the act and the legislative will of the trustee. To illustrate this view, suppose congress should in the same act make a grant to two parallel roads running so near to eaeh other as to give rise to overlapping limits, would it not be the manifest intention of the grantor, in the absence of words to the contrary, that the lands should be divided between the two enterprises ? The pur- pose of such a grant would be to secure the building of two roads, but by giving all the lands to one road the building of the other would be defeated, and thus the purpose of the grantor would be thwarted. �But the United States is not the only party to the grant. There are other parties benefieially interested in it. The consideration for the grant is to be performed bj' the railway companies eontracting with the trustee to do the work, and the question arises, when ia their right to the land complete ? Their right is certainly not taade com- plete by the mere establishment of the deonite line of their road. Neither is their title to their line consummated by a grant to them by the ti'ustee ; or, in other words, by an act of the state legislature giv- ing them the lands. The grant being to the state in prasenti, the ��� �