In 1874 Giles, Tietkens, Gibson, and Andrews, with twenty-four horses, left the overland Central Australian telegraph line, to push out to the West as far as possible.  Keeping to the South of the already discovered Lake Amadeus, they found the Rawlinson and neighbouring ranges just within the Colony of West Australia.  Water was plentiful, and a depot camp was formed, Giles and Gibson making a flying trip ahead to the westward.  The furthest point was reached on April 23, 1874, from which the Alfred and Marie was visible some twenty-five miles distant.  At this point Gibson’s horse “knocked up,” and shortly afterwards died.  Giles thereupon gave up his own horse, the Fair Maid of Perth, and sent his companion back to the depot for relief; for it was clear that only one could ride the horse, and he who did so, by hurrying on, could return and save his companion.  With a wave of his hat, he shouted goodbye to his generous leader and rode off.  “This was the last ever seen of Gibson.”  It appears that the poor fellow failed to follow back the outgoing tracks, got lost in the night, became hopelessly “bushed,” and perished, alone in the desert.  Giles meanwhile struggled on and on, every hour expecting relief, which of course never came.  At last he staggered into camp, nearly dead.

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 region, avoiding death only by motion and distance, until some oasis can be found.”