Opinion of the Court. that he chose after he had made his proof and received his certificate. 17 L. D. 468, 471, 476. In accordance with the directions of the Secretary, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, on November 21, 1893, ordered the cancellation of the timber-land entry of Hackley upon the records of the Land Department, and the land was held subject to entry as public land of the United States. Thereafter Diller, the present appellee, made entry of and purchased the land in question under the above act of June 3, 1878, and a patent therefor from the United States, bearing date October 15, 1895, was issued to him. On February 21, 1896, the plaintiffs, now appellants and the transferees of Bailey, brought this suit against Diller in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Washington, Northern Division. The bill, after setting forth the above and other facts, alleged that the action of the Land Department in regard to the entry in question was without authority of law and that the patent to Diller was wrongfully issued. The relief asked was a decree holding the patent of the defendant to be a cloud upon the title of the plaintiffs, adjudging that the defendant held the title in trust for them, and requiring him to convey to them whatever title he might have obtained or acquired by virtue of such patent; that the title of the plaintiffs to the land be forever quieted against the defendant; and that such further relief be granted in the premises as might be equitable. A demurrer to the bill having been overruled, the defendant filed both a plea and an answer. After referring to the hearing before the receiver and the register, resulting in a division of opinion between those officers, the plea recited as a defence the history of the proceedings as above stated, and the entry of the land and the issue of a patent to the defendant after the cancellation of Hackley's entry. The plea was overruled. In his answer the defendant questioned the good faith and sufficiency of the conveyances from Hackley to Bailey and from Bailey to the plaintiffs. A replication was filed by the plaintiffs in which they asserted the truth and sufficiency in law of their bill, and Opinion of the Court. made a countercharge of insufficiency, untruthfulness and uncertainty as to the defendant's answer. Upon final hearing in the Circuit Court Judge Hanford held that where land had been regularly entered under the act of June 3, 1878, it was not subject to forfeiture after it had been conveyed to a bona fide purchaser; that the opinion of the Secretary of the Interior showed that the original entry in question was cancelled solely because it was deemed fraudulent, and no consideration whatever was given to the rights of the plaintiffs as bona fide purchasers; and that the evidence clearly showed that the plaintiffs were bona fide purchasers within the meaning of the act of Congress referred to. The Circuit Court was also of opinion that "the case in the Land Department, after the entry had been suspended, should have been adjudicated by the board composed of the Attorney General, the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of the General Land Office, as provided by sections 2450 and 2451, Revised Statutes, and the Secretary of the Interior, without a determination of the board, could not lawfully cancel the entry." A decree was therefore entered adjudging the plaintiffs to be the equitable owners in fee and entitled to the lands described in the bill; that the patent issued to the defendant Diller for the land in question was issued improvidently and without authority of law, was a cloud upon the title of the plaintiffs, and should be removed; and that whatever title might have accrued under or through such patent was held by the defendant in trust for the use and benefit of the plaintiffs. It was further adjudged that the defendant should convey to the plaintiffs, by good and sufficient deed, whatever of title he might have acquired under and by virtue of the patent, free and clear of any and all incumbrance, within ten days from the filing of the decree, and the master was authorized to make the conveyance in the event of his failure or refusal so to do; and the title of the plaintiffs to the land was declared to be forever quieted as against the defendant. Hawley v. Diller, 75 Fed. Rep. 946. The defendant appealed and the decree of the Circuit Court was reversed with directions to dismiss the bill with costs to the defendant-Judge Hawley delivering the opinion of the Opinion of the Court. Circuit Court of Appeals. Diller v. Hawley, 48 U. S. App. 162. From that decree the plaintiffs have appealed to this court. As shown by the above statement of the provisions of the act of June 3, 1878, 20 Stat. 89, c. 151, known as the Timber and Stone Act, a purchaser of the surveyed public lands in California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, valuable chiefly for timber but unfit for cultivation, or valuable chiefly for stone, was required in his sworn application to state that he did not seek to purchase the same on speculation but in good faith to appropriate it to his own exclusive use and benefit, and that he had not, directly or indirectly, made any agreement or contract with any person or persons by which the title he might acquire from the United States should inure in whole or in part to the benefit of any person except himself; and if the applicant swore falsely in the premises, he became liable to the penalties of perjury, and would forfeit the money he paid for the lands; and all right and title to the same and any grant or conveyance he may have made, "except in the hands of bona fide purchasers," would be null and void. Who, within the meaning of the act, are to be deemed bona fide purchasers? Could the appellants, against whom, in respect of these lands, no charge of fraud was made, be deemed bona fide purchasers, if it appeared to the Land Department, before a patent issued, that the original entryman made the application to purchase "on speculation" and not in good faith to appropriate the lands to his own exclusive use and benefit? The words "bona fide purchasers," as applied to purchasers of public lands, did not appear for the first time in the Timber and Stone Act of 1878. The first section of the act of June 22, 1838, granting preemption rights to settlers on the public lands, contains substantially the same provisions as to the effect of a false oath by the applicant and the same saving for the benefit of bona fide purchasers. 5 Stat. 251, c. 99. Like provisions were made in the act of September 4, 1841, appropriating the proceeds of the sales of the public lands and granting preëmption rights. 5 Stat. 453, 456, c. 16, § 13. And the provisions of the last act were preserved in section 2262 of the Revised Statutes. Opinion of the Court. The contention of appellants is that as between themselves and the United States they must be deemed to have been bona fide purchasers from the moment they bought in good faith from Bailey, the vendee of Hackley, (although no patent had been issued,) and that, under the act, they could not be affected by the fraud of the original entryman or his assignee. While the mere words of the act of Congress furnish some ground for this contention, the interpretation suggested cannot be approved. In Root v. Shields, 1 Wool. 340, 348, 363, Mr. Justice Miller had occasion to consider who were to be regarded as bona fide purchasers under the preemption laws when no patent had been issued by the United States. He said: "It is further insisted on behalf of the defendants that they are bona fide purchasers, and that they, as such, are entitled to the protection of the court. I think it pretty clear that some at least of these defendants purchased and paid their money without any knowledge in fact of any defect in the title. Yet they are not bona fide purchasers, for a valuable consideration, without notice, in the sense in which the terms are employed in courts of equity. And this for several reasons. They all purchased before the issue of the patent. The more meritorious purchased after the entry had been assailed and decided against by the land office. But that is a circumstance not material to this. consideration. Until the issue of the patent the legal title remained in the United States. Had his entry been valid, Shields would have taken only an equity. His grantees took only an equity. They did not acquire the legal title. And in order to establish in himself the character of a bona fide purchaser, so as to be entitled to the protection of chancery, a party must show that, in his purchase and by the conveyance to him, he acquired the legal title. If he have but an equity, it is overreached by the better equity of his adversary." The rule thus laid down was followed by Secretary Teller in Cogswell's Case, 3 L. D. 23, 28. In Chrisinger's Case, 4 L. D. 347, 349, Secretary Lamar said: "It is insisted by counsel, and ably argued at length, that the assignees of Chrisinger, being bona fide purchasers after entry, are entitled to intervene and have their interests protected as they took without notice of Opinion of the Court. any defect in the final proof. This proposition is not tenable. It involves the principle that although the claim for title while in the hands of the entryman is worthless, on account of his failure to comply with the law, such claim may be strengthened and made a matter of absolute right by virtue of a transfer to an innocent purchaser. The converse of this, however, is true. Conceding the right of sale after the issuance of final certificate and prior to patent, the purchaser takes no better claim for title than the entryman has to confer, and whatever right is thus acquired is subject to the subsequent action of the Land Department. Myers v. Croft, 13 Wall. 291; Margaret Kissack, 2 C. L. L. 421. Again, the Department must deal directly with its own vendees, with the persons with whom it contracts. It cannot undertake to follow the transfers of the grantees, and to settle questions that may arise upon such transfers, but must leave such matter for determination in the courts." So in Smith v. Custer, 8 L. D. 269, 278, Secretary Vilas said : "The preemption purchaser takes by his final proofs and payment, and his certificate of purchase, only a right to a patent for the public lands in case the facts shall be found by the General Land Office and the Interior Department upon appeal to warrant the issuance of it. Whatever claim to patent he possesses by virtue of his payment and certificate is dependent upon the action of the Department and its future finding of the existence of the conditions, and his compliance in fact with the prerequisites, prescribed by law to the rightful acquisition of the public land he claims. This being so, it is plain that the purchaser can acquire from the entryman no greater estate or right than the entryman possesses. The purchaser is chargeable with knowledge of the law, which includes knowledge of this law; and is chargeable with knowledge of the state of the title which he buys, in so far, at least, as that the legal title remains in the United States, subject to the necessary inquiry and determination by the land office and Department upon which a patent may issue. He is not then an innocent purchaser,' so far as there may exist reasons why that patent should not issue. He buys subject to the risk of the consequences of the inquiry depending in the Department. He buys a title sub judice. At |