Finally, he raised his head to look around him. The sun had set just a bit lower in the sky, casting shadows of the large trees over the river. Gabriel realized he would be spending another night here in the woods. The thought sent a chill down his spine. He was not really sure what he’d seen last night in its misty form, but he knew he didn’t want to see it again.
Still a little dizzy from the blow he received the night before, Gabriel’s vision blurred as he stood to look upstream. The river made another bend several hundred yards further upstream. Dense woods lined it the entire way. As he peered along the bank, one of the trees caught Gabriel’s eyes, as if it had just appeared out of nowhere. It was taller than all of the rest of the trees along that portion of the bank, and it looked like an oak. He stepped out onto the rock to get a little better look. What he saw startled him. A gnarled entanglement of large roots on the ground around the tree appeared to have formed a hollow just at the base of the giant oak. Gabriel’s heart leapt up into his throat. He knew this had to be the tree where the treasure was hidden.
H 17 H
THE JOURNEY ENDS
Gabriel gathered up his drum and began to turn around to leap back onto the bank and make a mad rush for the tree. Just as he turned, something in the river caught his eye. A dark object appeared to be moving in the shadowy water, coming around the bend in the river upstream from him. He stood motionless on the rock, straining his eyes to see. Looking more closely, he could see the something moving or waving.
The thought of Thomas Tew’s ghost crept into Gabriel’s mind, sending chills up and down his back again. But this was not the white phantom shape he had seen the other night. Still, he thought it was odd the shape had appeared in the water just as he spotted the giant hollowed oak tree. This being — or whatever it was — had sprung up in the river at the exact spot where Captain Tew would have jumped in to escape the bandits’ musket fire. In fear, disbelief, or perhaps exhaustion, a sudden fainting spell caught hold of him. His vision blurred again, and he lost his balance, almost stumbling off the rock and into the river.
Squatting to his knees, Gabriel again looked up river. He heard something above the sound of rushing water and the low drone of the waterfall that lay downstream. He thought he heard someone calling out. Again, he heard the noise. He was able now to hear a muffled, “Help me . . .”
Gabriel forced himself to look up at the shape floating down the river. His vision cleared enough to see what looked like a man waving one arm. His other arm was wrapped around a small log, as he struggled to stay afloat. The current swept him along. This did not look, or sound, like a ghost.
Gabriel could now hear the cries more clearly. “HELP! HELP!” The man let go of the log and grasped at a boulder that barely broke the surface of the frothy water. He caught hold and clung on. Then he turned toward Gabriel and looked him squarely in the eyes. Venturing to the edge of the rock on the river’s bank, Gabriel looked closely now. The man had a gash on his forehead, and blood was oozing from the cut.
That’s no ghost, Gabriel thought. Instinctively, he began to move more quickly. His mind cleared as his adrenaline raced. Again, he thought of how Thomas Tew met his death tumbling over the approaching waterfall. He waved at the man from the rock. “Hold on,” he shouted. Gabriel leapt from the rock to the bank and turned to head upstream to where the man had caught hold of the boulder. But as soon as he turned, the man lost his grip on the boulder and began careening down the tumbling water once more.
Gabriel began to panic. What could he do for this man? The stranger would soon float past him. He knew he could certainly not jump into the river to try and save the man.
His mind raced. He must find some way to get him out. The man was growing near, his head still above the water, arms flailing. “The trail,” Gabriel said to himself. He could take the shortcut at the bend. If he ran, he might be able to get ahead of the man and throw something in for him to grab onto.
He turned and sprinted back to the narrow trail, his drum catching on the brush as he ran. He lifted the strap over his shoulder and threw it to the ground. He ran as fast as he had the night before when he was running for his own life. This time, it was the life of the man in the river he was running to save.
Gabriel burst out at the trailhead. The raging sound of the waterfall was much louder now, almost drowning out his thoughts. He quickly went to the bank and looked upstream. The man was still being swept along by the current. Gabriel had gotten ahead of him, but now what?
He surveyed his surroundings, looking for something to throw the drowning man. If he could find a long enough fallen tree limb, he could toss it out and pull the man to shore. He scrambled along the bank, pushing old leaves aside on the forest floor, but there were no long limbs to be found.
Then Gabriel spotted a tall, slender sapling with exposed roots on the muddy bank from the rushing waters. If he could topple this sapling, it
