In August they finally go chaining past the eighty-one-mile mark, which they figure puts them a little beyond the Tangent Point, wherever it is, back there. They take September, October, and November to find it, as nicely as Art may achieve, computing Offsets and measuring them, improving the Tangent Line by small Tweaks and Smoothings, until they  can report at last that the ninety-degree Angle requir'd, between the Tangent Line and the twelve-Mile Radius from the Court House to the Tangent Point, is as perfect as they can get it,— which means, as it will prove, off by two feet and two inches, more or less. In December they discharge the Hands and pause for the Winter, Usa Louis Vuitton at Harlands', at Brandywine. "To a good year's work." Dixon raising a pewter Can of new Ale. "And pray for another." "To Repetition and Routine, from here to the End of it," Mason ges?turing reluctantly with his Claret-Glass.. .even so, more festive than he's been for a while. "Routine! Not likely! Not upon the West Line! Who knows what'll be out there? Each day impossible to predict,— Eeh! pure Adventure...?" "Thankee, Dixon, a Comfort as ever, yes the total Blindness in which we must enter that Desert, might easily have slipp'd my mind, allowing me a few pitiable seconds' respite from Thoughts of it how welcome,— alas, 'twas not to be, was it, at least, nowhere in range of your Voice." "Ehw deah...imagin'd I'd been taking rather the jolliest of Tones actually, my how awkward for you...?" Another Holiday flare-up, of many preceding, which at first had sent Harlands of all ages cringing against the walls or scrambling up the Lad?der, yet soon subsided to but one more sound of untam'd Nature to be grown us'd to out here, like Thunder, or certain Animal Mimickries at night, from across a Creek. Each time, the Surveyors apologize for their behavior,— then, presently, are screaming again. Apologize, scream, apologize, scream,— daily life in the Harland house grows jagged. After a Christmastide truce, with the rest of the winter waiting them, perhaps more of it than any can imagine themselves surviving without at least one serious lapse in behavior, the Surveyors decide to travel to Lancaster, perhaps in hopes that the imps of discord will fail to pursue them 'cross Susquehanna. Chapter 34 Lancaster Town lies thirty-five miles' Journey to the West. "What brought me here," Mason wrote in the Field-Record, "was my curiosity to see the place where was perpetrated last Winter the Horrid and inhu?man murder of 26 Indians, Men, Women and Children, leaving none alive to tell." " 'Me,' notes Uncle Ives, " 'my,'— sounds like Mason gucci handbags went by him?self." The Revd nods. "Dixon told me, that Mason had meant to go alone,— but that at the last moment, mindful of the dangers attending Solitude in a Town notorious for Atrocity, he offer'd to add Muscular Emphasis, tho' Mason seem'd unsure of whether he wanted him there or not." They— presume "they,"— reach Lancaster 10 January 1765, putting up at The Cross Keys. The Public Rooms are crowded with Lawyers, Town Officials, Justices, Merchants, and Mill-owners,— the middling to better sort, not a murderously drooling backwoodsman in sight,— unless they include their Guide, pick'd up about a minute and a half inside the Town Limits, who may once or twice have undergone a loss of salivary control,— Mason soon enough on about how quaint, how Amer?ican, Dixon rather suspecting him of being in the pay of the Paxton Boys, to keep an eye upon two Hirelings of their Landlord and Enemy, Mr. Penn. "Here for a look at the Massacre Site, are you, Gentlemen? I can always tell. Some bring Sketching-Books, some Easels, others their Specimen- Bags, but all converge thro' the same queer Magnetism. I quite under?stand, tho' others about may not,— 'twould do to mind one's belongings,— yet I must not bite the Backs that ignore me— The first stop upon any Tour is acknowledg'd to be The Dutch Rifle, whither the Boys, hush'd be the Name ever spoken, having left their Horses at Mr. Slough's, repair'd just before the Doing of the Deed. Step this way, pray yese." When they see what is upon the Tavern Sign, Mason and Dixon exchange a Look,— the Weapon depicted, Black upon White, is notable for the Device upon its Stock, a Silver Star of five Points, revers'd so that two point up and one down,— a sure sign of evil at work, universally rec- ogniz'd as the Horns of the D——l. No-one would adorn a Firearm with it, who was not wittingly in the service of that Prince. This is not the first Time the Surveyors have seen it,— at the Cape, usually right-side-up, it is known as the Sterloop,— a sort of good-luck charm, out in the Bush. But ev'ry now and then, mostly on days of treacherous Wind or Ill-Spirits, one or both had spied upon a Rifle an inverted Star, much like what they observe now, against the Sky, plumb in the windless Forenoon. "I told ye the last time, that last time was the last time, Jabez," comes a Voice from a high Angle,— Mason and Dixon, peering upward, observe the Landlord, whose Pate appears to brush the beams above him, in a vex'd Temper. "Ever a merry Quip," cries Jabez, nimbly stepping behind the Sur?veyors and propelling them in ahead. They are examin'd skeptickally. "Not from the Press, are you?" " 'Pon my Word," cry both Surveyors at once. "Drummers of some kind's my guess," puts in a Countryman,Louis Vuitton Shoes for Men his Rifle at his Side, "am I right, Gents?" "What'll we say?" mutters Mason urgently to Dixon. "Oh, do allow me," says Dixon to Mason. Adverting to the Room, "Why aye, Right as a Right Angle, we're out here to ruffle up some busi?ness with any who may be in need of Surveying, London-Style,— Astro-nomickally precise, optickally up-to-the-Minute, surprisingly cheap. The Behavior of the Stars is the most perfect Motion there is, and we know how to read it all, just as you'd read a Clock-Face. We have Lenses that never lie, and Micrometers fine enough to subtend the Width of a Hair upon a Martian's Eye-ball. This looks like a bustling Town, plenty  of activity in the Land-Trades, where think yese'd be a good place to start?" with an amiability that Mason recognizes as peculiarly Quaker,— Friendly Business. "Then why are yese askin' Jabez 'bout th' Massacree?" inquires a toothless old Coot with an empty Can, which Dixon makes sure is promptly fill'd. "Aye! How do we know ye're not just two more Philadelphia Fops, out skipping thro' the Brush-wood?" "He approach'd us," Mason protests. "We're men of Science," Dixon explains, " - this being a neoclas-sickal Instance of the Catastrophick Resolution of Inter-Populational Cross-Purposes, of course we're curious to see where it all happen'd.— "You can't just come minuetting in from London and expect to under?stand what's going on here," advises Mr, Slough. "This is about Family, sure as the History of England. Inside any one Tribe of Indians, they're all related, see? Kill you one Delaware, you affront the Family at large. Out here, if it's Blood of mine, of course I must go out and seek redress,— tho' I'll have far less company." "Each alone lacking the Numbers, our sole Recourse is to bandLouis Vuitton Shoes for Women together." "These were said to be harmless, helpless people," Dixon points out in some miraculous way that does not draw challenge or insult in return. Apprehensive among these Folk, Mason, who would have perhaps us'd one Adjective fewer, regards his Geordie Partner with a strange Gaze, bordering upon Respect. "They were blood relations of men who slew blood relations of ours," Jabez explains. "Then if You know who did it, for the Lord's sake why did You not go after them?" "This hurt them more," smiles a certain Oily Leon, fingering his Frizzen and Flint. "Aye, they go on living, but without dear old Grandam,— puts a big Hole in the Blanket, don't it?" "You must hate them exceedingly," Mason pretending to a philosoph-ickal interest actually far more faint than his interest in getting out of here alive. "No," looking about as if puzzl'd, "not any more. That Debt is paid. I'll live in peace with them,— happy to." "Mayn't they now feel oblig'd to come after you?" asks Jere Disingen?uous. He notices Mason just visibly creeping toward the Door. "Not this side of the River, nor this side of York and BaltimoreLouis Vuitton Belt Road. 'Tis all ours now. They answer to us here." "What's the complaint?" demands Oily Leon. "We're out here as a Picket for Philadelphia,— we've clear'd them a fine safe patch, from Delaware to Susquehanna. Now may they prance about foolish as they may." "Aye, Penns, handing us and our children about like Chattel,— "Damme,— like Field Slaves!" - dared they ever leave England and come here, they should find harsher welcome than any King." "Here's a Riddle,— if a cat may look at a King, may a Pennsylvanian take aim at a King's enforcer?"