No time was lost in saddling fresh horses, and Tietkens and his exhausted
companion set out in search of the missing man. Picking up the Fair
Maid's tracks, they followed them until they were four days out from
camp, and it became clear that to go further meant sacrificing not only
their own lives but that of their mate left behind at the depot, as well
as that of all the horses. Gibson's tracks when last seen were leading in
a direction exactly opposite to that of the camp. Luckily the cold
weather (April) stood their horses in good stead; but in spite of this
and of the water they packed for them, the horses only managed to crawl
into camp. It was manifestly impossible to make further search, for
seventy miles of desert intervened between the depot-camp and the tracks
when last seen; and the mare was evidently still untired. So, sorrowfully
they retraced their steps to the East, and the place of Gibson's death
remains a secret still. I have heard that months after Giles's return,
Gibson's mare came back to her home, thin and miserable, and showing on
her belly and back the marks of a saddle and girth, which as she wasted
away had become slack and so turned over. Her tracks were followed back
for some distance without result. Poor thing! she had a long journey, and
Giles must have spoken truly when he said, "The Fair Maid was the gamest
horse I ever rode."

Giles's account of this desert shows that the last twenty years have
done little to improve it! He says "The flies were still about us in
persecuting myriads; . . . the country was, quite open, rolling along in
ceaseless undulations of sand, the only vegetation besides the
ever-abounding spinifex was a few bloodwood trees. The region is so
desolate that it is horrifying even to describe. The eye of God looking
down on the solitary caravan as it presents the only living object around
must have contemplated its appearance with pitying admiration, as it
forced its way continually onwards without pausing over this vast sandy