Another blow, with the sledge, demolished the remaining glass.

He trembled with excitement as he chose what he most needed.

"I certainly do understand now," said he, "why the New Zealanders took
Captain Cook's old barrel-hoops and refused his cash. Same here! All
the money in this town couldn't buy this rusty knife--" as he seized a
corroded blade set in a horn handle, yellowed with age. And eagerly he
continued the hunt.

Fifteen minutes later he had accumulated a pair of scissors, two
rubber combs, another knife, a revolver, an automatic, several
handfuls of cartridges and a Cosmos bottle.

All these he stowed in a warped, mildewed remnant of a Gladstone bag,
taken from a corner where a broken glass sign, "Leather Goods," lay
among the rank confusion.

"I guess I've got enough, now, for the first load," he judged, more
excited than if he had chanced upon a blue-clay bed crammed with
Cullinan diamonds. "It's a beginning, anyhow. Now for Beatrice!"

Joyously as a schoolboy with a pocketful of new-won marbles, he made
his exit from the ruins of the hardware store, and started back toward
the tower.

But hardly had he gone a hundred feet when all at once he drew back
with a sharp cry of wonder and alarm.