Winged figure across upper back

The line came through the valley on Tuesday, drawn in pencil by a man who had never walked it. Father says the hatching on the survey sheets is only a way of admitting nobody knows the ground. Yet the men at the post have begun to trust the sheets more than their own boots.

The stone at the saddle still carries the old figure, the winged one with its arms flung wide as if it were measuring the sky. Mother called it an angel, but the clerk calls it a surveyor's joke, since the arrow cut into its shoulder points north and the three thin lines around it make a triangle exactly the shape of a tripod. Last week a man in a grey coat stood under it for an hour, sketching the feathers. He said they were the only honest part of any map, being solid and black and not guesses at all.

He crossed at dusk with his papers in order and no luggage. I stamped him through because the stamp said so, and because he asked me which side of the feathers the river ran on. I told him the feathers were on both sides. He laughed and said that was the right answer.

Come home before the frost closes the saddle, and bring the good lamp. If the arrow still points north when you reach the stone, you will know which country you are standing in, and it will not be the one printed on the sheet. Your sister, Ilse.