In 1772, a ship comes to anchor at the mouth of the North River in Marshfield, Massachusetts. A small boat makes its way to shore with three men aboard. When the boat nears the shore, the oarsmen jump into the water and pull the bow up onto the beach. The third man steps out onto the sand. He turns and watches as the seamen lifted a small chest from the bottom of the boat. They set the chest on the beach to rest, and the chest sinks several inches into the wet sand. The seamen pick up the chest and struggle up a path through high marsh grass. On the other side of the marsh, the riverbank rises to the edge of a darkened woods, and beyond the woods, a large New England colonial mansion sits at the top of the hill. Two men are murdered this night, shot in the back. Two hundred years later, a treasure hunter battles local cynicism, murder, and suicide to prove the existence of lost gold. In the process, he finds real treasure.