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Show case and regretted that professional engagements had made it im-possible for them to be present on the date fixt for the application. They claimed on behalf of their clients that no valid cause of action existed against them in favor of the Montauk Indians, but asked that their absence from the hearing be not construed as assent on their part to the initiation of any action or to the granting of the consent required by the law, and that the action taken at the time of the appli-cation be without prejudice to the rights of their clients. They de-sired to have it on record that they reserved all rights which they might have in the premises. TURTLE MOUNTAIN CHIPPEWAS. As set forth in my last annual report, a recommendation was mnde to the Department on April 22, 1905, that two townships embraced in the Turtle Mountain Reservation, in North Dakota, be surveyed a,s public lands are surveyed, and that the work of allotting these lands be taken up and the Indians put in possession of their future homes as soon as possible. The survey bas been finished and the surveyor-general of North Dakota has been requested to transmit the returns as soon as practi-cable. Special Agent Edgar A. Allen has been designated to enroll the Indians and make. the allotn~entsa, nd to assist such 111dialls as are unable to obtain allotments on the reservation in making selections on the public domain under the act of April 21, 1906 (43 Stat. L., 194). He is now making the enrollment. The work has been very laborious and has involved some intricate questions, from the fact that twelve years elapsed between tlio date when the original enrollment and agreement were made and the date when the amended agreement was approved. During the interval many Indian women married white men and left the reser-vation, and several Indian families left the reservation and too~c up land on the public domain, and it was a question whether such Indians were still entitled to share in the benefits of the ameride; agreement. The instructions for making the tribal roll, as approved by the Department on August 13, 1904, directed the superintendent to strike from the McCumber Commission's census of 1892 (see Execu-tive Document 229, 52d Cong., 26 sess.) the names of persons who had died and of those who had permanently left the reservation or had separated themselves from the band either by affiliating with other tribes or otherwise indicating such intention. It was not pur-posed, however, to deny enrollment to any who might have entered lands on the public domain with the intention of acquiring home-steads, for this was one of the desired objects. The superintendent |