Springman jumped onto the scrap pile, sure that today he would finally find another spring-man like himself. He stood taller than a man, his whole body a stack of coiled springs, with a real human head grinning under a red baseball cap. Somewhere in this mountain of nuts, screws, and bolts, he was certain another face like his own lay buried. He had heard the rumor for weeks. He would dig until he found it. But his legs were the problem. Each leg was a tight coil-spring, meant for bouncing, not digging. He bounced high and landed hard. The packed metal held firm. He clawed with his spring hands, and screws slid back into the hole as fast as he scooped them. He worked for an hour. The pile swallowed every effort. Whatever lay below stayed buried, out of reach. Springman sat down and stared at the garage across the yard. Its broad service doors stood open. He had passed it every day. Now he studied it with new eyes. Inside, tools hung on the walls. He searched until he found what he needed. On a low bench lay a heavy pair of clawed cutters, sharp and rugged, built to bite through steel. He turned them over in his spring fingers. Their jaws could shear a bolt clean. If he fixed them to his legs, his useless bounce might become a drill. He worked all afternoon. He bent his lower coils around the cutter handles and wound them tight. He clamped the clawed jaws so they pointed down like a beak. He tested one leg, then the other. The sharp edges held firm. Springman bounced back to the pile. He drove his new claw-leg down. The jaws bit through packed screws and threw them aside. He punched the second leg after it. The hole grew. Bolts flew past his shoulders. For the first time, the metal gave way beneath him. He drove deeper, faster, cutting a shaft into the heart of the pile. His claw struck something that did not scatter. He stopped. He reached into the hole and pulled up a coil-spring arm, rusted but whole, shaped just like his own. He held it to the light. It was real. Another spring-man existed, and part of him lay right here. Springman shouted with joy. Then he saw the trouble. His cutting had loosened the whole pile. Screws slid down from every side and poured into his fresh shaft. The metal groaned and shifted. Faster than he could climb, the scrap collapsed inward, burying the arm again and pulling Springman's claw-legs down with it. He had found his proof. Now the shifting pile was dragging him under, and his sharp new legs were stuck fast.