be judged as a whole. Looking at them as a whole we see that the plaintiff was a good deal more than a mere conduit for the Chile Exploration Company. It was its brain or at least the efferent nerve without which that company could not move. The plaintiff owned and by indirection governed it, and was its continuing support, by advances from time to time in the plaintiff's discretion. There was some suggestion that there was only one business and therefore ought to be only one tax. But if the one business could not be carried on without two corporations taking part in it, each must pay, by the plain words of the Act. The case is not governed by McCoach v. Minehill & Schuylkill Haven R. R. Co., 228 U. S. 295, and United States v. Emery, Bird, Thayer Realty Co., 237 U. S. 28. It is nearer to Von Baumbach v. Sargent Land Co., 242 U. S. 503.

Judgment reversed.

MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND took no part in the decision of this case.

SMITH v. MCCULLOUGH ET AL.

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.

No. 22. Argued October 8, 1925.-Decided March 22, 1926.

1. Whatever is essential to federal jurisdiction must be alleged in the complaint; otherwise the suit must be dismissed, unless the defect in the complaint be cured by amendment. P. 459.

2. Where the jurisdiction depended on the existence of a dispute over the construction of federal statutes, which was not properly shown in the bill, but which was the principal controversy in several trials in which jurisdiction was assumed to exist by the courts and both parties, and this appeared by the record-held that the defect was amendable and would be treated as amended in this Court. P. 459.

3. A judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals reversing the District Court and remanding the case for further proceedings is interlocutory, and a party against whom it was rendered and who did not acquiesce in it is not precluded by it from reopening the questions so decided when the case is again appealed after a second trial. P. 461.

4. Where a Quapaw Indian, whose general power to alienate or lease his allotment was restricted by Acts of Congress applying generally to his tribe, was permitted by a special Act to alienate, subject to the supervision and approval of the Secretary of the Interior, and made a mortgage, with such approval, and subsequently received a release and reconveyance-held that the transaction did not rid him of the restrictions on the land, and that the validity of a lease he afterwards made, without the Secretary's approval, was governed by the Acts first mentioned. P. 462.

5. A Quapaw Indian, permitted by the Act of June 7, 1897, to lease his allotment for mining purposes for ten years, made a lease for that term with an added provision that the term continue thereafter so long as minerals could be produced with profit. Held that the lease could not be sustained upon the ground that the addition was severable from the lawful term. P. 463.

6. Where the allotee undertakes to negotiate a lease for a forbidden term, he enters a field in which he must be regarded as without authority or capacity, and the resulting lease is void. P. 465. 285 Fed. 698, reversed.

APPEAL from a decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals affirming a decree of the District Court which, in a suit to determine adverse claims based on conflicting mining leases given by a Quapaw Indian, upheld the plaintiff's lease and cancelled the defendants' leases to the extent of the conflict. See also 243 Fed. 823.

Mr. Arthur S. Thompson for appellant.

Mr. Joseph C. Stone, with whom Messrs. A. C. Towne, George J. Grayston, C. M. Grayston, Paul A. Ewert, James Davenport, W. M. Jackson, and W. R. King were on the briefs, for appellees.

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

This appeal brings under review the proceedings in a much-litigated suit in equity brought to determine adverse claims based on conflicting mining leases given by a Quapaw Indian of land which was part of his allotment. The plaintiffs (appellees here) claimed under the first lease, and the defendant (appellant here) under two later leases, which taken together included the same land as the first. The relief sought by the plaintiffs was full recognition of their lease and cancelation of the others. On the original hearing the District Court, following its decisions in earlier cases, held that the plaintiffs' lease contravened restrictions imposed by laws of Congress, in that it was for a longer term than ten years, and therefore was void. Accordingly the bill was dismissed; but the Circuit Court of Appeals disapproved that ruling, reversed the decree and remanded the cause for further proceedings, 243 Fed. 823. On a subsequent hearing the District Court recognized the plaintiffs' lease as valid for a term of ten years and canceled the defendant's leases to the extent of the conflict. The Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision, 285 Fed. 698; and the present appeal is from the decree of affirmance.

The plaintiffs insist that this appeal cannot be entertained, although taken prior to the Act of February 13, 1925, c. 229, 43 Stat. 936, changing federal appellate jurisdiction. But we think they misapprehend the situation.

The suit was not within any of the classes as to which an appeal was denied by § 128 of the Judicial Code, as existing before the change. Either the suit was one arising under the laws of Congress relating to the alienation and leasing of Quapaw allotments, or there was an entire absence of federal jurisdiction. In either event § 241 of

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Opinion of the Court.

the Judicial Code, as existing before the change, permitted an appeal to this Court from the final decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals. The only difference was that if the suit was one arising under the laws of Congress relating to the alienation and leasing of such allotments the reëxamination by this Court would extend to the merits; while if there was an absence of federal jurisdiction this Court could not consider the merits, but would have to reverse the decrees of both courts below and remand the cause to the District Court with a direction to dismiss the bill for want of jurisdiction. Shoshone Mining Co. v. Rutter, 177 U. S. 505, 514; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Ann Arbor R. R. Co., 178 U. S. 239, 244. The Act of 1925 expressly left all appeals which were then pending in this Court to be disposed of under the old law.

It therefore is necessary at the outset to determine whether this suit was one arising under the legislation. relating to Quapaw allotments or was one where there was an absence of federal jurisdiction. The established rule is that a plaintiff suing in a federal court must show in his pleading, affirmatively and distinctly, the existence of whatever is essential to federal jurisdiction; and, if he does not do so, the court, on having the defect called to its attention or on discovering the same, must dismiss the case, unless the defect be corrected by amendment. Norton v. Larney, 266 U. S. 511.

Here the bill disclosed that the lease under which the plaintiffs were claiming, and which they sought to have recognized, was based on the laws of Congress relating to the right of Quapaw allottees to alienate and lease their lands, and that the defendant was claiming adversely under later leases from the same lessor. It apparently was intended to show that the suit was one arising under those laws; but it fell short of showing that a real dispute over their construction and application was involved.

See Schulthis v. McDougal, 225 U. S. 561, 569; Barnett v. Kunkel, 264 U. S. 16, 19-20. In fact, as appears elsewhere in the record, that was the principal matter in dispute, and the outcome depended on its solution. The defendant's first step in the suit was to challenge the plaintiffs' right to relief by a motion to dismiss on the ground that under those laws, rightly construed and applied, the plaintiffs' lease was invalid. That challenge was sustained by the District Court, but was overruled by the Circuit Court of Appeals on the first appeal. A simple amendment of the bill, conforming its jurisdictional allegations to the fact thus brought into the record, would have corrected the defect and put in affirmative and definite form what apparently was intended in the beginning. Had the defect been called to the court's attention, leave to make the amendment could and doubtless would have been granted. Both parties proceeded as if the jurisdictional showing was sufficient; and both courts below dealt with the suit as one arising under the laws before named and proceeded to its determination accordingly. The suit was begun in 1916; the parties had two hearings in each of the courts below; and the merits were exhaustively presented. In these circumstances to amend the bill now to conform to the jurisdictional fact indisputably shown elsewhere in the record will not subject either party to any prejudice or disadvantage, but will subserve the real interests of both. This Court has power to allow amendments of this character. Rev. Stat. § 954; Norton v. Larney, supra; Realty Holding Co. v. Donaldson, 268 U. S. 398, and the propriety of exercising it in this instance is obvious. We therefore shall treat the bill as amended, by our leave, to show the jurisdictional fact conformably to other parts of the record. With that fact brought into the bill, there can be no doubt that there was federal jurisdiction. Hopkins v. Walker, 244 U. S. 486; Norton v. Larney, supra.