Northern Pacific act, is very significant, and points to an intention on the part of congress to omit that requirement. “As the same expression is presumed to be used in the same sense throughout an act, or a series of cognate acts, so a difference of language may be prima facie regarded as indicative of a different meaning. Indeed, the words of a statute, when unambiguous, are the true guide to the legislative will. That they differ from the words of a prior statute on the same subject is an intimation that they are to have a different, and not the same, constuction.” End. Interp. St. § 382. This principle has often been evoked by the courts with decisive effect in statutory construction, and is strictly applicable to such a case as the one before us.
By the act of July 2, 1864, the following things are prescribed as requisite to a selection: First, that lands within the forty (or twenty in the states) mile limits of the grant should have been granted, sold, reserved, occupied by homestead settlers, pre-empted, or otherwise disposed of prior to the time the line of the road is definitely fixed, and a plat thereof filed in the office of the commissioner of the general land office; second, that the selection must be within ten miles of the place limits of the grant; third, they must be of odd sections, or parts of odd sections; fourth, they must be non-mineral public lands, not reserved, sold, granted, or otherwise appropriated, and free from pre-emption or other claims or rights; fifth, they must be made by the company; and, sixth, they must be made under the directions of the secretary of the interior. When these conditions are complied with, the land is at once identified, and passes under the grant. This act does not require, and the court cannot import, among the conditions precedent to the acquisition of title to indemnity lands by selection, the further conditions, “subject to the approval of the secretary of the interior.” U. S. v. Railroad Co., 98 U. S. 339. The approval of these lists by the secretary would be of great importance to the company. The approved lists, like the patents, would be conclusive evidence that the government, by its authorized agent, had determined that there was a deficiency within the place limits, which the company was entitled to have filled from the indemnity
