The chronicle of a town, with only one character of importance, and he a philosopher who comes to the ghost town to escape the outside world. Coarse Gold had been a boom town in the 's -- but that time was past. The philosopher, seeking the ""ultimate reality"" finds the outside world intruding in the person of a young professor seeking tungsten. It is found in quantity, and the town faces a second boom. As a story, it is rather inconclusive, though it is characterized by the sensitive style of the author of Solitaire.