Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 2).pdf/380

 exempt from taxation at the time of the assessment and levy, and such assessment and levy were void.

The only remaining question is, therefore, does the complaint show such a title in the railroad company as will enable it to maintain this action? Of course, if plaintiff has no interest in these lands, their taxation and sale cannot work any injury to it,and it cannot be heard to complain. The third section of the act of July 2, 1864, granting lands to the Northern PacficPacific [sic] Railroad Company, is as follows: “That there be, and hereby is, granted to the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, its successors and assigns, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of said railroad and telegraph line to the Pacific coast, and to secure the safe and speedy transportation of the mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores over the route of said line of railroad, every alternate section of public land, not mineral, designated by odd numbers, to the extent of twenty alternate sections per mile on each side of said railroad line, as said company may adopt, through the territories of the United States, and ten alternate sections of land per mile on each side of said railroad whenever it passes through any atate, and whenever on the line thereof the United States has full title, not reserved, sold, granted, or otherwise appropriated, and free from preemption or other claims or rights at the time the line of the road is definitely fixed, and a plat thereof filed in the office of the commissioner of the general land office; and whenever, prior to said time, any of said sections or parts of sections shall have been granted, sold, reserved, occupied by homestead settlers, or pre-empted, or otherwise disposed of, other lands shall be selected by said company in lieu thereof, under the direction of the secretary of the interior, in alternate sections, and designated by odd numbers, and not more than ten miles beyond the limits of said alternate section; provided, that if said route shall be found upon the line of any other railroad route, to aid in the construction of which lands have heretofore been granted by the United States, as far as the routes are upon the same general line, the amount of land heretofore granted shall be deducted from the amount granted by this act; provided, further, that the railroad company receiving the previous grant