and constituted notice that their issue was induced by fraud and perjury. Let us consider these arguments in their order.

The complainant alleged in its bill, the defendant admitted in its answer, and the evidence demonstrated that the Martin Company sold, assigned, and transferred the timber contracts to the Detroit Company on January 14, 1901. No merger of the two corporations was pleaded; none was proved. The transfer of the stock of Martin in his company to Clark and to the Detroit Company and the substitution of Clark for Martin as president of the former company when the sale was made was nothing but a means to an end, a device to effect the sale and to transfer the immediate possession and control of the property to the vendee. That transfer was not intended to merge, and it did not merge, the two corporations into one, nor did it charge Clark or the Detroit Company with notice of any of the acts or transactions of the Martin Company of which he was not otherwise aware. In his relations to the Martin Company and to its grantors, the United States and the entrymen and entrywomen, Clark was still the agent and representative of the purchaser, and not of the seller. There is no evidence in this record that notice of facts sufficient to put a person of ordinary prudence on inquiry for fraud and perjury in the applications for the purchase of these lands was ever given to the Detroit Company, or to any of its officers, before it consummated its purchase; nor is there any evidence that a reasonably diligent inquiry would have discovered fraud or perjury if it had been instituted. Clark saw the timber contracts, and received the assurance of the vendor that all the grantors in them had patents or final receipts for their lands, and that the title under them was perfect. These were all the facts relative to this matter of which Clark received notice. The contracts were such as any entryman might lawfully make under the opinion of the Supreme Court in U. S. v. Budd, 144 U. S. 154, 163, 12 Sup. Ct. 575, 36 L. Ed. 384. They were not of the same date, but were executed at various times between July, 1899, and September 6, 1900. There was nothing here to incite a reasonably prudent man to inquire for fraud in the entries of the land. Nor would a reasonably diligent inquiry have discovered any fraud. If the question had been put to the entrymen, to the entrywomen, to Martin, and to Alexander, they would have answered with a single voice that the statements in the applications were true, for they have so testified here. If inquiry had been made of the officers of the land department, they would have replied that there was no falsehood in the statements and that the entries were lawfully and regularly made, for they issued the final receipts and the patents upon them in that belief.

Nor was there any duty upon this purchaser, in the absence of other facts suggesting inquiry, when the seller presented conveyances to it apparently valid, and gave its assurance that they vested perfect titles in it, to make further investigation. The presumption always is, in the absence of countervailing evidence, that men tell the truth and that bills of sale and deeds prima facie valid are actually so, and purchasers may lawfully act upon this presumption. Jones v. Simpson, 116 U. S. 609, 615, 6 Sup. Ct. 538, 29 L. Ed. 742. "Where a person has not actual notice, he ought not to be treated as if he had notice, unless the circumstances are such as enable the court to say not only that he might have acquired, but also that he ought to have acquired, the notice with which it is sought to affect him; that he would have acquired it but for his gross negligence in the conduct of the business in question.” Ware v. Lord Egmont, 4 D. M. & G. 460, 473; Sugden on Vendors, 622; Wilson v. Wall, 73 U. S. 83, 91, 18 L. Ed. 727. "What makes inquiry a duty is such a visible state of things as is inconsistent with a perfect right in him who proposes to sell. Meehan v. Williams, 48 Pa. 238, 241; Townsend v. Little, 109 U. S. 504, 511, 3 Sup. Ct. 357, 27 L. Ed. 1012; Colorado Coal Co. v. U. S., 123 U. S. 307, 316, 319, 8 Sup. Ct. 131, 31 L. Ed. 182; Crawford v. Neal, 144 U. S. 585, 595, 12 Sup. Ct. 759, 36 L. Ed. 552. The notice to the Detroit Company meets none of these tests of constructive notice where actual notice is absent.

The next contention is that the timber contracts conveyed nothing but an equitable claim to the title of the grantors in them to the timber, because they were executory contracts to sell, and that, therefore, the Detroit Company could not be a bona fide purchaser, because it acquired no legal estate under them. But the contracts were not executory agreements to sell, but absolute conveyances in præsenti of the timber growing upon the land. They therefore vested in the Martin Company and its grantors an interest in the real estate. White v. Foster, 102 Mass, 375; Russell v. Myers, 32 Mich. 522.

Finally, counsel for the government say—and this seems to be the argument upon which they most implicitly rely-that acquisition of the legal title was indispensable to the defense of a bona fide purchase; that the legal title to all but 13 of the 4+ tracts was in the United States when the Detroit Company purchased; that the title to the timber on these 31 tracts which the Detroit Company bought was a mere equitable title evidenced by the final receipts; that these receipts constituted notice to the Detroit Company that they had been secured by the fraud and perjury of the entrymen and entrywomen, and that the company could not divest itself of this notice by the subsequent issue of the patents and the acquisition of the legal title which inured to it thereunder. There are many reasons why this argument is not persuasive. In the first place, conceding for the present, without admitting or deciding this to be the law, that a legal estate in the vendee is an essential condition of the defense of a bona fide purchase, such an estate vested in the Detroit Company before it received any notice of the alleged fraud. In the second place, the patents, when issued, related back to the dates of the applications upon which they were founded, and vested the legal estate in the timber in the Detroit Company as of the date of its purchase from the Martin Company, and before it had notice of the fraud. And, in the third place, the Detroit Company was an innocent purchaser for value, in good faith, of the equitable title to the timber, evidenced by the final receipts, and the legal title vested in it by the issuance of the patents before the government assailed either.

Counsel for the government cite in support of their position that one who innocently purchases the equitable title evidenced by receivers' final receipts, and subsequently acquires the legal estate evidenced by patents issued upon them, is charged with notice of fraud and perjury in the inception of his title from the government, and cannot be a bona fide purchaser. U. S. v. Steenerson, 50 Fed. 504, 1 C. C. A. 552; American Mortgage Co. v. Hopper (C. C.) 56 Fed. 67; Id., 64 Fed. 553, 559, 12 C. C. A. 293, 299; Diller v. Hawley, 81 Fed. 651, 655, 26 C. C. A. 514, 518; Hawley v. Diller, 178 U. S. 476, 20 Sup. Ct. 986, 44 L. Ed. 1157; U. S. v. Bailey, 17 Land Dec. 468; Orchard v. Alexander, 157 U. S. 372, 15 Sup. Ct. 635, 39 L. Ed. 737; Parsons v. Venzke, 164 U. S. 89, 91, 17 Sup. Ct. 27, 41 L. Ed. 360; Guaranty Savings Bank v. Bladow, 176 U. S. 448, 453, 20 Sup. Ct. 425, 44 L. Ed. 540; California Redwood Co. v. Litle (C. Č.) 79 Fed. 854; I'd., 87 Fed. 1004, 31 C. C. A. 591. But these authorities fail to sustain the proposition. They are cases in which the final receipts which evidenced equitable titles were avoided by the officers of the Land Department before the legal estate had been vested in the innocent purchasers. In these cases the courts held that the receiver's final receipt is prima facie evidence of the right of the entrymen to a patent; that the power is vested in the Land Department to set this aside and to cancel the entry it evidences for fraud or error after proper notice to the parties in interest, and in this way to take away from the innocent purchaser his prima facie evidence of title; that this power is not arbitrary or unlimited, but its exercise is always subject to judicial inquiry; that it is limited in duration to the time anterior to the issue of the patent; and that the avoidance of the receipt and the cancellation of the entry do not strike down the right of the purchaser to enforce the equitable title which he has purchased in the courts of the land, but that its effect is to compel him to sustain that title by evidence de hors the receipt. But the case in hand is not ruled by these conclusions. The Land Department did not avoid, it confirmed, the voidable title which the Detroit Company purchased by adding to it the legal title. The receiver's final receipts were not notice of fraud and perjury in their procurement. They were notice of honesty and legality in the proceedings that induced their issue. They were prima facie evidence that those who received them had the right to patents to the lands, and they raised the legal presumption that entrymen and officers alike had complied with the law. They were notice to the Detroit Company of the power of the Land Department to avoid them for fraud or error before the patents were issued, and of no other defect or danger, and the authorities cited for complainant express no different opinion. The Detroit Company took its equitable title to the timber subject to this notice, and subject to the possible exercise by the Land Department of this power. That department exercised the power, as the legal presumption was that it would exercise it, by affirming the validity of the voidable titles and by issuing the patents upon them. Here the effect of the notice from the purchase of the equitable titles ceased. The only reason that purchase gave notice of a voidable title was the fact that it did not acquire the legal title. The moment the legal estate inured to the benefit of the Detroit Company by the issue of the patents without notice of any fraud or irregularity in their procurement, its defense of a bona fide purchase was complete. It contained every essential element of a complete defense except the legal title before the patents were delivered. It was the lack of the legal title, and that alone, that made its defense vulnerable in the Land Office. When the patents had issued, the power of the Land Department had ceased, and the Detroit Company's position was conditioned by every attribute of that of a bona fide purchaser. Conceding that the indispensable elements of such a ciefense are absence of notice of the fraud or defect, good faith, payment of value, and the legal estate, it is not material at what time or in what order the purchaser acquires them. It is only necessary that they all concur in him at the same time. It is indispensable to this defense that the consideration should be paid before notice of the defect. But it is not essential that it should be paid before or at the time the title is conveyed. It is sufficient if the payment is completed at any time before notice of the defect is received. It is not more essential that the legal title should be secured before or at the time when the consideration is paid. It is enough if it is acquired before notice of the alleged fraud or perjury is fastened upon the purchaser.

The legal title to the timber upon 13 of the tracts in dispute vested in the Detroit Company on January 14, 1901, when it purchased of the Martin Company. Its defense to the attack upon the title to the timber upon these tracts did not, however, become complete until April 22, 1901, when it finished its payment of the purchase price of the property. Its title then became unassailable at the suit of the government for fraud or perjury which induced the issue of the patents. U. S. v. Winona & St. Peter R. Co., 15 C. C. A. 96, 109, 67 Fed. 948, 961; U. S. v. Burlington & M. R. Co., 98 U. S. 334, 342, 25 L. Ed. 198; U. S. v. California & Oregon Land Co., 148 U. S. 31, 41, 13 Sup. Ct. 458, 37 L. Ed. 357. On May 9, 1901, four months before it received any intimation of any defect in its title and eleven months before this suit was instituted, the patents to the other 31 tracts had issued, and the legal estate in the timber upon them had been vested in the Detroit Company. The purchase price had been paid in full. The legal title had been acquired. No notice of any fraud or perjury in the inception

Xo of, or of any defect in, the title which it had bought, and which had passed from the complainant to it when the patents were issued (Sandels & H. Digest, $ 699), had been received. Why was not its defense that it was a bona fide purchaser impregnable? No satisfactory answer to tliis question has occurred to us, and our conclusion is that one who purchases in good faith and pays value for the equitable title to land of the government evidenced by the receiver's final receipt, and who subsequently, and before receiving notice of any fraud or defect in bi title, acquires the legal estate through the issue of the patent, is a bona fide purchaser, and his title is unassailable at the suit of the United States to avoid the patent for fraud or perjury of the immediate or r mote grantors of the purchaser. Colorado Coal Co. v. L'. S., 123 U. S. 307, 309, 322, 8 Sup. Ct. 131, 31 L. Ed. 182; U. S. v. Clark (C. C.) 125 Fed. 777, 776.

Finally, this is a suit in equity. The equitable claims of the United States appeal to the conscience of a chancellor with the same, but with no greater or less, force than would those of an individual in like circumstances. Bona fide purchasers are the especial favorites of courts of equity. In Boone v. Chiles, 10 Pet. 177, 209, 9 L. Ed. 388, Mr. Justice Baldwin, in delivering the opinion of the Supreme Court, said:

"A court of equity can act only on the conscience of a party. If he has done nothing that taints it, no demand can attach upon it so as to give any jurisdiction. Sugd. Vend. 722. Strong as a plaintiff's equity may be, it can in no case be stronger than that of a purchaser who has put himself in peril by purchasing a title and paying a valuable consideration without notice of any defect in it or adverse claim to it; and when, in addition, he shows a legal title from one seised and possessed of the property purchased, he has a right to demand protection and relief (9 Ves. 30-34), which a court of equity imparts liberally."

Conceding now, for the purpose of the remainder of this discussion, that the Detroit Company purchased and paid for the equitable estate evidenced by the final receipts in the first instance, and that it did not acquire the legal title until the patent issued, what has that company done to taint the conscience of any one, or to entitle the government to any relief against it in this suit? The record discloses nothing. The general rule in chancery is that, where equities are equal, the defendant prevails; that it is only when the case of the complainant appeals to the conscience of the court with the greater force that it will interfere to grant relief. St. Johnsbury v. Morrill, 55 Vt. 165, 169; 2 Pom. Eq. Jur. § 739; Colyer v. Finch, 5 House of Lords Cas. 694, 706; Medlicott v. O'Donel, 1 Ball & Beatty, 156, 171. Here the equity of the government is far less persuasive than that of the Detroit Company. The former has received and still retains $17,000, the purchase price which it fixed for these lands; and it asks this court that the timber upon them, which constitutes their only real value, be taken from the defendant, which has innocently bought and paid for it, and restored to the complainant. It issued its final receipts, which were prima facin evidence of a right in the grantees therein named to the title to these lands, and the Detroit Company purchased and paid for the timber upon them in reliance upon these certificates, without notice of any fraud in their procurement. The company seeks no relief, but prays only that it be permitted to retain that which it bought and paid for in good faith, while the complainant seeks to keep the purchase price of the property which it sold and to recover back the property itself. The equity of the defendant is the stronger. Not only this, but the Detroit Company has added to its equitable title the legal estate in the timber. Where equities are equal, the law must prevail. A court of equity will not interfere at the suit of the holder of a prior equitable title or claim to deprive the innocent purchaser for value of a junior equitable estate of equal strength of a legal title which he has subsequently bought or obtained after notice of the defect. It will not disarm a bona fide purchaser, or take from him the shield of any legal advantage. 1 Story, Eq. Jur. (13th Ed.) 8 640; 2 Pom. Eq. Jur. $ 766; Bosset v. Nosworthy, 2 Leading Cases in Equity (4th Ed.) 71; Bayley v. Greenleaf, 7 Wheat. 46, 57, 5 L. Ed. 393; Lea v. Polk County Copper Co., 62 U. S. 193, 198, 16 L. Ed. 203; Dueber Watch-Case Mfg. Co. v. Dougherty, 62 Ohio St. 589, 596, 57 N. E. 455; Zollman v. Moore, 21 Grat. 313, 321. In Dueber Watch-Case Mfg. Co. v. Dougherty, one Coburn held stock in the company, for which he had paid nothing, and which he had agreed to transfer back to the corporation. While this stock