To Appearance, Trans-Susquehanna is peaceful enough,— Farm-houses, a School-house, a Road to York. At the third ten-minute segment of Arc, they calculate their probable error, change direction by an R.P.H. to the Northward, and continue to their next stopping-place, which once again shall place them conveniently,— this time beside the great inland Road between York and Baltimore, more real than any imaginary Line any would run athwart it. The earth hereabouts is red, the tone of a new Brick Wall in the Shadow, due to a high ratio of iron,— and if till'd in exactly the right way, it becomes magnetized, too, so that at Harvest-time, 'tis necessary only to pass along the Rows any large Container of Iron, and the Vegetables will fly up out of the ground, and stick to it.
Ahead of them in the next ten minutes of Arc lie a dozen Streams falling into Gunpowder Creek, which runs roughly parallel to the Visto, and about a mile south of it. The last of these Branches being close enough to another ten minutes West, upon crossing it, they need only calculate their error as before, and aim slightly north, so as to fall in again with their proper Latitude, ten minutes west of that.. .in such easy Hops thro' the summer fields and the German cooking, do they progress, Susquehanna to the Allegheny Mountain. Some mornings they awake and can believe that they traverse an Eden, unbearably fair in the Dawn, squandering all its Beauty, day after day unseen, bearing them fruits, presenting them Game, bringing them a fugitive moment of Peace,— how, for days at a time, can they not, dizzy with it, believe themselves pass'd permanently into Dream... ?
Summer takes hold, manifold sweet odors of the Fields, and presently the Forest, become routine, and one night the Surveyors sit in their Tent, in the Dark, and watch Fire-flies, millions of them blinking ev'rywhere,— Dixon engineering plans for lighting the Camp-site with them, recalling how his brother George back home, ran Coal-Gas through reed piping along the Orchard wall. Jeremiah will lead the Fire-flies to stream con?tinuously through the Tent in a narrow band, here and there to gather in glass Globes, concentrating their light to the Yellow of a new-risen Moon.
"And when we move to where there are none of these tiny Linkmen?"
"We take 'em with huz...? Lifetime Employment!"
"But how long do they live?"
"Ensign Cheer."
As the Visto has grown longer behind them, the Philadelphiaward Fringe of the nightly Encampment has lengthen'd to a suburbs dedicated to high (as some would say, low) living. Gaming, corn whiskey, Women able to put up with a heap of uncompensated overtime, Stages knock'd together each nightfall and lanthorn'd into view, to a Murmur as of a great Crowd in Motion, only to be struck again each dawn,— as those for whom it is cheaper to follow than to abandon the Party for business elsewhere, groan?ing with the Night just past, hoping for a chance to sleep sometime during the Journey, prepare to follow the Axmen through another day. The fast-and-loose artist, the Quartz-scryer, the Vasquez Brothers' Marimba Quar?tet, who often play back-up for the Torpedo, to whom it is the musick of his Youth, his home Waters. The marimbas, in great towering Structure assem-bl'd each evening just outside of camp, pulse along, Chords and Arpeggia-tions swaying upward to their sharp'd versions, then back down again, sets of Hammers, Hands, and Sleeves all moving together along the rank'd wood Notes, nocturnal, energetic, remembrancing, warning, impelling.... The Anthem of the Expedition, as it moves into the Unknown, is "Pepina-zos,"— marching, and rolling, but wishing rather to dance.
Pepinazos, nunca Abrazos, Si me Quieras, Sí
De Veras,
?Oigamé!—
Déjaté,
Los Pe-pi-naa-zos!
All summer they labor in the service of the Line, over Codorus, Conewago,— pausing to set up the Sector, dodging inch-and-a-half hail?stones, calculating Off-sets, changing Direction,— 'cross Piney Run and Monocacy Road, and the Creeks beyond, till just past Middle Creek, fig?uring they are about in their Latitude, without bothering to set up the Sector, the Surveyors turn off the Angle calculated to put them another ten minutes on,— at the South Mountain, in among all the ghosts already thick in those parts.
"We are Fools," proposes Dixon one night. The wind has shifted at about sundown to the SSE, heightening even minor stresses among the Company. "We shouldn't be runnin' this Line...?"
Mason regards his Cup of Claret. "Bit late for that, isn't it?"
"Why aye. I'll carry it through, Friend, fear not. But something invis?ible's going on, tha must feel it, smell it...?"
Mason shrugs. "American Politics."
"Just so. We're being us'd again. It doesn't alarm thee...?"
An accident of the late Light has fill'd Mason's Orbits with color'd shadows. "Resign? They would bring up the Letter. Immediately. Then?"
Dixon nods glumly, and Mason keeps on, more than he has to. "Tho' we're in this together, yet is it easier for you, being the Quaker and not expected to prove combative, than for me, who must accordingly bear double the burden of Bravery. Splendid. Did they team us up together like this deliberately? Are you my Penalty, precise to the Groat, for enjoying a Command of my own? For not having seconded Maskelyne at the Transit? Now I have to be Eyre Coote?"
"Bit steep, isn't i'...?"
Mason begins fiddling with his Queue, bringing it first over one Shoulder, then the other. "If it were all true,— ev'ry unkind suspicion, ev'ry phantastickal rendering,— would we, knowing all, nonetheless go on? Do what's clearly our Duty?”
"We sign'd an Agreement."
"If it meant our Destruction?"
"The ancient matter of the Seahorse must ever prevent us from Resigning. We've no choice, but to go on with it, as far as we may."
"Then as we've no choice, I may speak freely and share with you some of my darker Sentiments. Suppose Maskelyne's a French Spy. Suppose a secret force of Jesuits, receives each Day a summary of Observations made at Greenwich, and transcalculates it according to a system known to the Kabbalists of the Second Century as Gematria, whereby Messages may be extracted from lines of Text sacred and otherwise, a Knowledge preserv'd by various Custodians over the centuries, and since the Last, possess'd by Jesuit and Freemason alike. The Dispute over Bradley's Obs, then, as over Flamsteed's before him, would keep ever as their unspoken intention that the Numbers nocturnally obtain'd be set side by side, and arrang'd into Lines, like those of a Text, manipulated till a Message be reveal'd."
"Bit sophisticated for me. Tho' I don't mind a likely Conspiracy, I pre?fer it be form'd in the interests of Trade,— the mystickal sort you fancy is fair beyond me, I'm but a simple son of the Pit."
' 'Trade.'— Aha. You heard me mention Jesuits,— so now you're making veil'd allusions to the East India Company, in response,— I do see, yes... Drivel, of course."
"Come, Sir, can you not sense here, there, just 'round the corner, the pattering feet and swift Hands of John Company, the Lanthorns of the East... ? the scent of fresh Coriander, the whisper of a Sarong... ?"
"Sari," corrects Mason.
"Not at all Sir,— 'twas I who was sarong."
"Something's afoot with those Two, all right," says Dixon one day.
"Which two?"
"Frenchy and Mrs. Redzinger, they're scarcely together of late, 'd tha notice?"
As they draw nearer the Redzinger Farm, the presence of Peter Redzinger becomes quite sensible to both. Indeed, he's been back since the Winter,— he and the Boys have been working the place, lumbering
 about insomniack, eating whenever they happen to remember, tracking soil ev'rywhere, hardly speaking. To Luise he seems chasten'd, even at times dejected, yet in............