loan and sent them to Towner to be carried out; "without question those things have been attended to’; “at any rate your mortgage is a valid first lien, but I want the abstract completed and brought down to date, so that I do not have to keep it in mind and so that I will know that everything is closed up.” On November 24, 1914, plaintiff wrote Kittel instructing him to collect ‘the first coupon for $140 on the Alfalfa Valley Land Com- + pany note, and requesting Kittel to find out definitely whether the deed of the Northern T'rading Company to the land company had been recorded, so as to complete the title. Kittel, president, on November 30, 1914, wrote that the interest coupon would be paid “tomorrow promptly”; that he would have the boys mail a draft for it; that the Northern Trading Company, since the floating of the loan, had taken over from the land company all land in Pierce county including the land on which plaintiff had a mortgage; that he had the abstract, but returned it to Towner for completion; that “there will be no trouble whatever with the title.” On December 2, 1915, Kittel, president, upon stationery of the Northern Trading Company, wrote plaintiff that they had taken over the land of the Alfalfa Valley Land Company and assumed the payment of his mortgage; that they were just completing an audit and would send to him a check for the amount due plus accrued interest ; that “I have disposed of all my banking interests and am devoting myself to this company.” On December 20, 1915, the receiver of the defendant bank sent to the plaintiff the $2,000 mortgage note of the Alfalfa Valley Land Company and the mortgage deed.
There is evidence in the record that this land was poor land, practically a sand hill, and worth from $800 to $1,500. The abstract of the land introduced certified by the abstractor in February, 1914, discloses title in the Northern Trading Company and this land company mortgage to the plaintiff, filed January 14, 1914. The abstract as later certified in November, 1916, by the-abstractor, shows a judgment of the National City Bank of Chicago against the Northern Trading Company for $15,000, docketed in January, 1916. Under this judgment, upon execution proceedings, this land was sold at sheriff’s sale to the National City Bank of Chicago for $1,000 on January 10, 1918. In December, 1916, the plaintiff brought an action against this land company, the Northern Trading Company, and the National City Bank of Chicago to have adjudged the mortgage of the land and to determine the adverse interest of the defendants. The district court determined the judgment lien of the bank to
