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337 Appeal from the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Statement of Justice McKenna followed by opinion. This suit was brought by the United States to restrain appellants and others from constructing or maintaining dams or reservoirs on the Milk River in the state of Montana, or in any manner preventing the water of the river or its tributaries from flowing to the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. An interlocutory order was granted, enjoining the defendants in the suit from interfering in any manner with the use by the reservation of 5,000 inches of the water of the river. The order was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. 143 Fed. Rep. 740. Upon the return of the case to the Circuit Court, an order was taken pro confesso against five of the defendants. The appellants filed a joint and several answer, upon which and the bill a decree was entered making the preliminary injunction permanent. The decree was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. 148 Fed. Rep. 684. The allegations of the bill, so far as necessary to state them, are as follows: On the 1st day of May 1888, a tract of land, the property of the United States, was reserved and set apart “as an Indian reservation as and for a permanent home and abiding place of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine bands or tribes of Indians in the State (then Territory) of Montana, designated and known as the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation.” The tract has ever since been used as Winters v. United States 207 U.S. 564 (1908) appendix a 338 APPENDIX A an Indian reservation and as the home and abiding place of the Indians. Its boundaries were fixed and defined as follows (25 Stat. 124): “Beginning at a point in the middle of the main channel of Milk River, opposite the mouth of Snake Creek; thence due south to a point due west of the western extremity of the Little Rocky Mountains; thence due east to the crest of said mountains at their western extremity, and thence following the southern crest of said mountains to the eastern extremity thereof; thence in a northerly direction in a direct line to a point in the middle of the main channel of Milk River opposite the mouth of People’s Creek; thence up Milk River, in the middle of the main channel thereof, to the place of beginning.” Milk River, designated as the northern boundary of the reservation, is a nonnavigable stream. Large portions of the lands embraced within the reservation are well fitted and adapted for pasturage and the feeding and grazing of stock, and since the establishment of the reservation the United States and the Indians have had and have large herds of cattle and large numbers of horses grazing upon the land within the reservation, “being and situate along and bordering upon said Milk River.” Other portions of the reservation are “adapted for and susceptible of farming and cultivation and the pursuit of agriculture, and productive in the raising thereon of grass, grain, and vegetables,” but such portions are of dry and arid character, and, in order to make them productive, require large quantities of water for the purpose of irrigating them. In 1889 the United States constructed houses and buildings upon the reservation for the occupancy and residence of the officers in charge of it, and such officers depend entirely for their domestic, culinary, and irrigation purposes upon the water of the river. In the year 1889, and long prior to the acts of the defendants complained of, the United States, through its officers and agents at the reservation , appropriated and took from the river a flow of 1,000 miners’ inches, and conducted it to the buildings and premises, used the same for domestic purposes and also for the irrigation of land adjacent to the buildings and premises, and by the use thereof raised crops of grain, grass, and vegetables. Afterwards, but long prior to the acts of the defendants complained of, to wit, on the 5th of July, 1898, the Indians residing on the reservation diverted from the river for the purpose of irrigation a flow of 10,000 miners’ inches of water to and upon divers and extensive tracts of land, aggregating in amount about 30,000 acres, and raised upon said lands crops of grain, grass, and vegetables. And ever since 1889 and July, 1898, the United States and the Indians have diverted...

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