Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/621

 taxes levied against said land, and which were paid by said Hodge.”

It is undisputed that a transaction took place between the plaintiff and the defendant Hodge, at the office of Attorney H. J. Linde in Stanley in Mountrail county in the latter part of December, 1912, and that at that time and place some written agreement, relative to the land, was made between them. The evidence shows that at that time the defendant Hodge paid the money to Ghusm, and received a warranty deed from him. The execution of that deed was acknowledged before H. J. Linde, as notary public, on December 27, 1912. Both the plaintiff and the defendant Hodge admitted that at that time and place a contract for deed was prepared and signed by them, but, as already stated, they differ as to the terms and as to the parties who signed the contract. The plaintiff claims that a contract was executed and signed by the plaintiff and the defendant Hodge alone. The defendant Hodge, on the other hand, claims that the contract then made was executed not only by the plaintiff and Hodge, but also by Abdel Hadey (plaintiff’s brother-in-law), and that by the terms thereof the defendant Hodge agreed to sell and convey an undivided one-half interest in the premises to the said plaintiff and to said Hadey, respectively. It is not dented that the contract then executed was acknowledged by the parties thereto before Linde as notary public; and, as already stated, it is admitted that some contract was prepared and signed by the parties at that time. The contracts produced and offered in evidence by defendant Hodge on the trial are dated on the same day as the deed from Ghusm to Hodge is dated, and these contracts, like the deed, were acknowledged before the said Linde as notary public. Linde was dead before this suit was tried, so his testimony could not be produced; but upon the trial it was stipulated that the signature attached to the certificate of acknowledgment is the genuine signature of Linde; also, that said Linde was at the time of the certificate a duly authorized notary public. The plaintiff says that he neither signed nor acknowledged this contract, and that his signature thereto is a forgery. He admits, how- ever, that at the time and place the contract in evidence purports to have been executed he did sign some contract. He accounts for the failure to produce the contract which he says was executed (and of which he received a duplicate) by saying that at some subsequent date the defendant forcibly took away from him the contract which he had received.

Hodge positively testified that plaintiff signed the contract offered in evidence, and he denies that he, at any time, took any contract away