quieted, that further hindrance and obstruction by the plaintiffs be enjoined, that an accounting be had and that the trustee then be directed to make a sale under the trust agreement and to distribute the proceeds according to its provisions. The plaintiffs traversed portions of the amended cross complaint. Thereafter a trial of the issues was had and the court made a special finding of facts favorable to the trustee and entered judgment thereon substantially as prayed in the amended cross complaint. The Supreme Court of the State affirmed the judgment, 131 N. E. 769, and at the solicitation of the plaintiffs the Chief Justice of that court allowed the present writ of error.

The trustee challenges our jurisdiction on the ground that the case is not one the judgment in which may be reviewed by us on writ of error. The challenge is well taken unless the case comes within that part of § 237 of the Judicial Code as amended September 6, 1916, c. 448, 39 Stat. 726, which provides:

"A final judgment or decree in any suit in the highest court of a State in which a decision in the suit could be had, where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised under the United States, and the decision is against their validity; or where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under any State, on the ground of their being repugnant to the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favor of their validity, may be reexamined and reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court upon a writ of error."

It is conceded that there was no effort to question the validity of any treaty or law of, or authority exercised under, the United States. But the plaintiffs insist that the validity of a statute of Indiana relating to conclusions stated in pleadings and the mode of securing better statements, c. 322, Acts 1913; c. 62, Acts 1915, was drawn in

question by them on the ground of the statute's repugnance to various provisions of the Constitution of the United States and that the court upheld and applied the statute. Of course, in determining whether that question was raised and decided we must be guided by the record. Butler v. Gage, 138 U. S. 52, 56; Zadig v. Baldwin, 166 U. S. 485, 488. It has been examined and we find it does not show that the question was raised in any way prior to the judgment of affirmance in the Supreme Court. In their assignments of error on the appeal to that court the plaintiffs said nothing about the statute or its validity; nor was there any reference to either in the court's opinion. All that appears is that after the judgment of affirmance the plaintiffs sought to raise the question by a petition for rehearing, which was denied without opinion. But that effort came too late. Bushnell v. Crooke Mining & Smelting Co., 148 U. S. 682, 689; Godchaux Co. v. Estopinal, 251 U. S. 179; Citizens National Bank v. Durr, 257 U. S. 99, 106. Federal questions, like others, should be presented in an orderly way before judgment. Dewey v. Des Moines, 173 U. S. 193, 200. And see John v. Paullin, 231 U. S. 583, 585; Atlantic Coast Line R. R. Co. v. Mims, 242 U. S. 532, 535. It is at least doubtful that the question is one of any substance, but its tardy presentation renders further notice of it unnecessary.

The case had been before the Supreme Court of the State on a prior appeal and the court had then construed the trust agreement and dealt in a general way with the rights of the parties under it. Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 185 Ind. 172. Referring to this, the plaintiffs, by way of asserting another ground for the writ of error, claim that on the second appeal the court took and applied a view of the trust agreement different from that taken and announced on the first appeal, and that this change in decision impaired the obligation of the agreement contrary to the contract clause of the Constitution

of the United States and was a violation of the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. Plainly this claim does not bring the case within the writ of error provision. Both decisions were in the same case. The first was interlocutory (185 Ind. 187188); the second final. Concededly the case was properly before the court on the second appeal; the plaintiffs evidently thought so, for they took it there. Whether the second decision followed or departed from the first, it was a judicial act, not legislative. The contract clause of the Constitution, as its words show, is directed against impairment by legislative action, not against a change in judicial decision. It has no bearing on the authority of an appellate court, when a case is brought before it a second time, to determine the effect to be given to the decision made when the case was first there. Cross Lake Shooting & Fishing Club v. Louisiana, 224 U. S. 632, 638; Ross v. Oregon, 227 U. S. 150, 161; Seattle, Renton & Southern Ry. Co. v. Linhoff, 231 U. S. 568; Kryger v. Wilson, 242 U. S. 171, 177; Columbia Railway, Gas & Electric Co. v. South Carolina, post, 236. And see King v. West Virginia, 216 U. S. 92, 100; Messenger v. Anderson, 225 U. S. 436, 444. Assuming that the objection to a change in decision was seasonably presented, it amounted to nothing more than saying that in the plaintiffs' opinion the court should follow the first decision. It did not draw in question the validity of an authority exercised under a State in the sense of the writ of error provision. Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Co. v. Gilbert, 245 U. S. 162, 166; Stadelman v. Miner, 246 U. S. 544, 546; Moss v. Ramey, 239 U. S. 538, 546; Gasquet v. Lapeyre, 242 U. S. 367, 369. Whether there was any substantial change in decision we need not inquire.

There is no other ground which tends even remotely to sustain the writ of error.

Writ of error dismissed.

Syllabus.

GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY COMPANY V. STEINKE ET AL.

CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA.

No. 152. Argued December 5, 1922.-Decided February 19, 1923.

1. The Act of March 3, 1875, granting railroad rights of way and station grounds in the public lands, should receive a more liberal construction than acts making private grants or extensive grants of land to railroads. P. 124.

2. Where a railroad, under this statute, with approval of the Land Department, secured station grounds in lieu of others nearby, previously selected, persons who were without interest in the premises at the time cannot object that the second selection was void because the first one exhausted the right. P. 125.

3. In a suit by a railroad company to quiet its title to lands included in a station-grounds map which was filed, amended and refiled and then approved by the Secretary of the Interior, held that this Court could not take judicial notice of the records of the General Land Office to ascertain the nature and extent of the amendment, nor assume that it was insubstantial; and that, in the absence of evidence on the subject, the rights of the railroad could relate back only to the date of refiling. P. 125.

4. Where land embraced in a map duly filed and approved, "subject to all valid existing rights," under the above act, is subject, at the time of filing and approval, to a preliminary homestead entry, the railroad gets a right for station purposes subject only to the qualification that the rights of the homesteader are not to be disturbed without due compensation, and this qualification disappears when the entry is relinquished and canceled, leaving the railroad's rights as complete as if the entry had never existed. P. 126.

5. The title of a railroad to station grounds under the above act of 1875 cannot be affected by the neglect of the local land officers to note the disposal on the plat and tract-book in their office. P. 129. 6. Purchasers of lots laid out on land included in their grantor's entry and patent but adjacent to the right of way of a railroad constructed over the patented subdivision, who know that the railroad claims rights older than those of their grantor, are bound to enquire and chargeable with notice of proceedings recorded in

the General Land Office, whereby the railroad obtained a senior title to such adjacent land for station purposes, under the Act of 1875, supra. P. 131.

So held, where the railroad right was not excepted in their grantor's patent and certificate.

7. A grant of land under the Act of 1875 is upon implied condition that it be used for the quasi public purposes named in the act, and neither laches of the railroad grantee, nor local statutes of limitation, can invest individuals with any interest in the tract, or a right to use it for private purposes, without the sanction of the United States. P. 132.

183 N. W. 1013, reversed

CERTIORARI to a decree of the Supreme Court of North Dakota affirming a decree of a trial court against the Railway Company in a suit to determine conflicting claims to a parcel of land.

Mr. C. J. Murphy, with whom Mr. M. L. Countryman and Mr. T. A. Toner were on the brief, for petitioner.

No brief filed for respondents.

MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a suit by the Great Northern Railway Company to determine conflicting claims to a small tract of land adjoining its right of way at Springbrook, North Dakota. That company claims the tract under a grant of station grounds made by the United States to the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Company, and the defendants claim the same under a patent from the United States to Philander Pollock. The defendants prevailed in the trial court and in the Supreme Court of the State. 183 N. W. 1013. A writ of certiorari brings the case here. 257 U. S. 629.

At a time when the lands in that vicinity were public lands the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Company, being duly qualified so to do, sought and se