Dodge Railroad Company, organized for the purpose of owning and operating that portion of the old Des Moines Valley road that had been constructed between Des Moines and Fort Dodge. On the foreclosure of this mortgage I had represented Martin Flynn and a number of the other contractors, for whom I had filed a mechanics' lien for work done and material furnished in the construction of the road north of Gowrie. I succeeded in obtaining a provision in the decree of foreclosure making these liens paramount to that of the mortgage, and when the road was purchased by the new organization called the Des Moines & Fort Dodge Railroad Company they were compelled to pay off Flynn and these other lien holders in order to secure their title. This new railroad organization elected Mr. Charles Whitehead, an attorney of New York City, its president, and I received from Mr. Whitehead a telegram asking if I could be retained as general attorney of their road. I replied that upon the receipt of a draft for five hundred dollars I would accept of the same as a general retainer. One object, I think, that the company had in desiring my services was to secure some one familiar with the question of the title of these Des Moines river lands that the new organization had bought in connection with this other part of the road. The last contest over the title was the case of the Iowa Homestead Company claiming the title under the railroad grant of 1856. It was the case of the Iowa Homestead vs. The Des Moines & Fort Dodge Railroad Company, reported in 17 Wallace, 84. Mr. Gue, in his history of Iowa, makes a special point as to the hardship visited on one of the settlers by the name of Crilley. I was attorney for Mr. Burrows in that case. Mr. Crilley first attempted to locate a warrant upon a tract of land near Fort Dodge prior to the decision of the supreme court of the United States in the Striker case. He was refused permission to make any such location or entry and was distinctly informed by the local land officers that the lands belonged to the Des Moines river grant. After the decision in the Striker case in 1859 and after the settlement between the state of Iowa and the Des Moines Navigation Company and the payment of the last $20,000 of the consideration, and after the execution of the deeds and patents by the state to the Des Moines Navigation Company, Crilley succeeded in inducing the local land officers to allow his location, and ultimately obtained a patent through their influence, signed by the President. The circuit court of the United States declared his patent void and decreed cancellation of the same. He took his appeal to the supreme court at Washington and that court affirmed the decree. The judges of the circuit court at Des Moines permitted Mr. Crilley, by his attorney, then to file a claim for his improvements under the occupying claimant law of Iowa. Commissioners were appointed and his improvements were valued at a very