Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/453

C, M. & ST. P. KY. CO. V. S. C. & ST. P. B. CO. 441 �establishment of a defiiiite liue givea it certainty and fixed limits. The grant then ceases to be afloat. The legal title to the lands in place passes to the state by virtue of the fixed Une. The limits of the indemnite lands are also thus fixed, and the title pasges to the trustee to certain and specifie tracts of land so soon as the lands are selected. But when is the right of the beneficiary, the raihvay oompany, to the lands complete ? Never, certainly, until the company has perf ormed its contract with the trustee by the construction of the work accord- ing to the law of the state granting the lands forthatpurpose. This law beeomes the contract between the railway company and the trustee, and any rights which the company may have in advance of performance on its part are merely inchoate. But when the rail- way company has built the road in compliance with the will of the legislature, and in accordance with the aet of congress granting the lands, its right to the lands, in law and equity, is complete. It lias then pertormed the consideration upon which it is entitled to the land, and it would be a positive wrong to the company so per- forming to deprive it of the consideration flowing to it under the con- tract . �Now, it 80 happens in the case before us that both the complainant and defendant companies have performed their respective contracts with the state of lowa. They have both built their roads in accord- ance with the legislation of the state and of congress. The complain- ant company has constructed its road to the acceptance of the state to the point of intersection in O'Brien county, as required by the act of congress. The complainant company now claims one-half of the lands lying within the overlapping limits. The defendant company resisls this claim, and seeks to exclude the complainant entirely from the lands within the same limits. The whole of these disputed lands lie within the limits fixed by the act of congress to the lands in place and the indemnity lands coterminous to both roads. �This brings us to the consideration of the grounds of law and equity upon which the defendant company claims the whole of the disputed lands to the entire exclusion of the complainant company. It is not our purpose in this opinion to review all the various propositions urged by the respondents in support of their position. This, within any reasonable limits, would be impracticable. We will, therefore, jonfine our attention to the consideration of the defendant's positions, which ^^e regard as those upon which they must stand if the ground they ocoupy can be maintained at all. In so doing we shall not fol- low exactly the order pursued by the respondent's counsel. ��� �