The river is Down Read Online Free

downhill. Otherwise we would have had a rear-end to rear-end collision, Flan nicely minced between.'
    `Yes .. . I see,' Cindie said, surprised at her nervousness of this man.
    There was silence as the Land-Rover churned its way, both front and rear drives of the car in action, over the sucking mud and through the red-brown water which washed and splashed to the floor level.
    `Your car is nose-deep in water, Miss Brown, because your tow-bar was at the back,' Nick Brent said looking in the mirror again as he began to climb the far bank. The electrical system will be wet, and until dried out, may not function. Flan will know.'
    `I see. Well, as long as I'm safely over the river, it won't matter. I can camp. I have gear and stores. I was prepared for an occasional night in the bush if I didn't make a town or motel on my way up the NorthWest Highway.'
    `If the river doesn't go down, you think you can keep right on camping on this side?'
    There was a catch somewhere hidden in this question. Something in his voice suggested it. He was still watching the muddy bank as they came up through the buff el grass towards dry land.
    'Well certainly,' she began. 'Camping here would be no different from camping on the other side, or anywhere on the track up north. . . .' She broke off, glancing at his profile uneasily.
    `Exactly,' he said dryly. He waited for a few minutes, then added quietly, 'Then why try to cross the river at all? A camp's a camp, so long as there's food and water.'
    Cindie's heart seemed to drop with a clang. Here was another person in her life equipped with deadly logic. David in a different guise?
    If she was going to camp here, she might as well have camped on the high ground between the billabong and the main bed of the river.
    `I didn't know how long the billabong would be a bog,' she protested.
    His voice became almost gentle, but not quite.
    `But you should have known, Miss . . . er . . . Brown did you say?'
    `Brown-all-over, but you could use just Brown for short.'
    He was silent some minutes, then said, `Cindie, appears to be the name you are known by over Baanya's radio, so I suggest we settle for that. Right?'
    She nodded. 'You don't care for Brown?'
    `I don't mind either way, but everyone north of Twenty-Six goes by his or her Christian name. Settled?'
    They had come up the bank, and were rolling along the flat land at the top. Cindie, without looking back through her window, knew by the feel of the engine that her own car had been towed clear of the water.
    Nick Brent ran the Land-Rover a good fifty yards across the flat land before he braked to a stop.
    "Cindie" it is,' she agreed. 'It's spelled with an "ie", not a "y".'
    His grey expressionless eyes looked at her.
    `Right,' was all he said.
    `So where do I go from here?' she asked quietly, meeting his glance.
    `I have no choice but to take you up to the construction camp.'
    The uninvited guest?'
    She regretted that, but could not take it back. It was ungracious of her, but then he made his own feelings so clear.
    He nodded.
    `I'm afraid so. It's not the Palace Hotel, nor even an outback motel. It's the headquarters of a large gang of road-building men. In such a camp women are limited to the necessary few.'
    `Then I could camp here. I would prefer—'
    `That would be even more responsibility for us, I'm afraid. If you were snake-bitten, or caught in a williwilli—and we have enough of them here—you would be more of a liability than if you were up at the construction camp.'
    He had spoken very quietly; a man of hour-to-hour problems all day, every day. This was just one more. Suddenly Cindie felt dreadful. Unwanted. Also angry. No one likes to be called a liability.
    The little monkey man was off the bumper of her car and at the rear of the Land-Rover. He was releasing the tow-rope. Then, by winding the winch, he swung the crane into place under the canvas cover of the Land-Rover.
    Nick Brent leaned out of the drive window.
    `How's the wiring under the