On the Twenty-ninth of May, they turn eastward again, measuring off?sets and marking them as they go. Now they begin the Day sighting into the Sun, and watching their own Shadows at Evening, Surveyor and Tri?pod and Instrument stretching back, somehow, toward the past, toward more youthful Selves. Going west, even no further than Susquehanna, living by the simple Diurnal Rhythms,— going ever with the Sun, was not the same as this going against it. " 'Aye, very different indeed," remarks Dixon.
Mason is trying to wake up. The nearest coffee is in the cook-tent. "Pray you," he whispers, "try not to be so damn'd,— did I say damn'd? I meant so fucking chirpy all the time, good chap, good chap," stumbling out of the Tent trying to get his Hair into some kind of Queue. The Cof?fee is brew'd with the aid of a Fahrenheit's Thermometer, unmark'd save at one place, exactly halfway between freezing and boiling, at 122°, where upon the Wood a small Arrow is inscrib'd, pointing at a Scratch across the glass Tube. 'Tis at this Temperature that the water receives the ground Coffee, the brew being stirr'd once or twice, the Pot remov'd from the fire, its Decoction then proceeding. Tho' clarifying may make sense in London, out here 'tis a luxury, nor are there always Egg-shells to hand. If tasted early, Dixon has found, the fine suspended matter in the coffee lends it an undeniable rustick piquance. Later in the Pot, the Liquid charring itself toward Vileness appeals more to those looking for bodily stimuli,— like Dixon, who is able to sip the most degradedly awful pot's-end poison and yet beam like an Idiot, "Mm-m m! Best Jaraoke west o' the Alleghenies!"— a phrase Overseer Barnes utters often, tho' neither Surveyor quite understands it, especially as the Party are yet east of the Alleghenies. Howbeit, at this point in a Pot's life-cycle, Mason prefers to switch over to Tea, when it is Dixon's turn to begin shaking his head.
"Can't understand how anyone abides that stuff."
"How so?" Mason unable not to react.
"Well, it's disgusting, isn't it? Half-rotted Leaves, scalded with boil?ing Water and then left to lie, and soak, and bloat?"
"Disgusting? this is Tea, Friend, Cha,— what all tasteful London drinks,— that," pollicating the Coffee-Pot, "is what's disgusting."
"Au contraire," Dixon replies, "Coffee is an art, where precision is all,— Water-Temperature, mean particle diameter, ratio of Coffee to Water or as we say, CTW, and dozens more Variables I'd mention, were they not so clearly out of thy technical Grasp,—
"How is it," Mason pretending amiable curiosity, "that of each Pot of Coffee, only the first Cup is ever worth drinking,— and that, by the time I get to it, someone else has already drunk it?"
Dixon shrugs. "You must improve your Speed...? As to the other, why aye, only the first Cup's any good, owing to Coffee's Sacramental nature, the Sacrament being Penance, entirely absent from thy sunlit World of Tay,— whereby the remainder of the Pot, often dozens of cups deep, rep?resents the Price for enjoying that first perfect Cup."
"Folly," gapes Mason. "Why, ev'ry cup of Tea is perfect...?"
"For what? curing hides?"
For the next three weeks, they are occupied again with the enigmatick Area 'round the Tangent Point, seeking to close the Eastern boundaries of Pennsylvania and Maryland,— the Commissioners, to appearance, being anxious upon this score. "They all live upon this side of Susque-hanna," Mr. McClean conjectures. "They don't want you across it just yet. Across it things are not so civiliz'd, so Anglican, begging your par?don, Sir, nor so Quaker, begging yours, Sir, or should I say, thine. Over Susquehanna begins a different Province entirely, and beginning at the Mountains, another differing from that, and so on,— beyond Mononga-
 hela, beyond Ohio,— tho' the betting in the Taverns is overwhelmingly against your getting quite that far."
"Won't that depend upon how far the Proprietors wish the Line to run?" inquires Mr. Mason.
"If by 'the Proprietors' you mean those who truly own it," remarks John Harland.
"The Indians," suggests Mr. Dixon.
"The Army," says Mr. Harland.
"I meant, rather, the Penns," Mason a bit starch'd, " - as Mary?land's Grant ends just past Laurel Hill, from there West 'tis Penn's Line alone, dividing Penn lands from Virginia,— who bear none of the Cost."
"Five Degrees from the Atlantick Coast," opines Mr. McClean, "will include Fort Pitt, and the first few miles of Ohio before it bends south.... Iron deposits, Coal as well, underground mountain-ranges of it, burning down there for centuries, known to the Indians, perhaps us'd as well in connection with their mysterious Lead Mines in the Mountains. Right up your Street, Mr. Dixon."
The Surveyors soon discover, that the Meridian drawn north from the Tangent Point, will run slightly inside the Twelve-Mile Arc, crossing it twice, at points about a mile and a half apart,— producing now, between them, two boundary lines, one "straight," and one, about a thousandth of a Mile longer, "curv'd" (which will one day be declar'd the Legal Bound?ary, thus whittling a tiny Sliver from Maryland). The three and a half Miles to the West Line remaining can be run as a piece of pure Merid?ian,— to be styl'd, "the North Line."
"All I know", Mason shrugs. " 's I'm suppos'd to line up Alioth and Polaris with the Flame of a Candle, a mile away, being held by you, who at the same time must ever be bisecting the Flame perfectly with the string of your Plummet."
"Unless it sets the String on fire, of course." So Dixon is sent out into Darkness variable as the Moon, thick with predators bestial and human, Indians upon missions forever secret from European eyes, all moving easily among this Community of Night, interrupted only by the odd unschedul'd Idiot. Even Animals are late to arrive at Water
 holes, and so run into others in the Herd, away from whom the late?comers would as gladly have kept,— and Herd-Politics takes another strange and unforeseen turn. Through it all, there is the unsure and withal helpless Assistant, moving his Lanthorn about in the Air, whilst a distant voice through a Speaking-trumpet bids him go right, then left.
"Frankly," Mason chuckles, by way of what he fancies Encourage?ment, "were I watching from the Darkness, I shouldn't want to get too close to anyone in a peculiar Hat, shouting in a loud metal Voice? The Savages may be as frighten'd of you as were the People in Cecil County last winter."
' 'Twastn't I than' frighten'd 'em... ? They took me for the Apprentice, no more...?"
"I saw you, deny it all you like, I saw you conversing with that Tor?pedo,—
"Nooah,— they were but more of thy Visions, Mason! tha were having them hourly, by then,— which is when, in fahct... ? ev'ryone grew fright?en'd of thee... ? Another few days of bad weather, and...," he spreads his hands, with a pitying Gaze.
At last, on June 6th, in a meadow belonging to Capt. John Singleton, nearly 50 Chains east of Mr. Rhys Price's House, where the Meridian and Parallel intersect, the Surveyors sink in a Post, mark'd W upon the West Side, and N upon the North, and the Boundary is clos'd.
Here at the northeast corner of Maryland, the Geometrickal Pilgrim may well wish to stand in the company of his thoughts, at this purest of intersections mark'd so far upon America. Yet, Geomancer, beware,— if thy Gaze but turn Eastward by an Eye-lash's Diameter, thou must view the notorious Wedge,— resulting from the failure of the Tangent Point to be exactly at this corner of Maryland, but rather some five miles south, creating a semi-cusp or Thorn of that Length, and doubtful ownership,— not so much claim'd by any one Province, as priz'd for its Ambiguity,— occupied by all whose Wish, hardly uncommon in this Era of fluid Identity, is not to reside anywhere. As a peaceful and meadowlike Vista sweeps Southward, the Line and the Arc approach one another, one may imagine almost sensibly,
 Bearing in from either Limb of Sight, A-thrum, like peevish Dumbledores in flight
as great Tox has it, in his Pennsylvaniad.
Yet there remains to the Wedge an Unseen World, beyond Resolution, of transactions never recorded,— upon Creeksides and beneath Hedges, in Barns, Lofts, and Spring-houses, in the long Summer Maize fields, where one may be lost within minutes of entering the vast unforgiving Thickets of Stalks,— indeed, all manner of secret paths and clearings and alcoves are defin'd,— push'd over or stamp'd into being, roofless as Ruins, for but a few fugitive weeks of lull before autumnal responsibili?ties come again looming. The sun burns, the gravid short Forests beckon. The Soil, when enough is reveal'd, becomes another sand Arena. Any?body may be in there, from clandestine lovers to smugglers of weapons, some hawking contraband,— buckles, lockets, tea, laces from France,— some marking off "Lots" for use in some future piece of Land-Jobbery. Insect pests are almost intimidated into leaving, but sooner or later come back.
Nearby, withal, is Iron Hill, a famous and semi-magical Magnetick Anomaly, known to Elf Communities near and far, into which riskers of other peoples' Capital have been itching for years to dig,— but being reluctant to reward more than one set of Provincial Officials at a time, are waiting until the legal status of the Wedge becomes clear. Is it part of Pennsylvania? Maryland? or of the new ent............