"It can't be, for only a moment ago I saw him mumbling prayers and hoping that his life would be spared. Fire the pile of brush, call in the scouts, and let me hear their report."
As the chief spoke, a huge pile of brush was fired, which illuminated the open space and cast a bright glare upon the faces of those present. Involuntarily, I looked at the person of the man who appeared to hold such despotic sway over his followers, and I shuddered while I gazed, for a more horrible face I never saw, except in my dreams.
His cheeks were seared until the flesh appeared livid and raw, and I expected to see blood trickle from the half-healed wounds. His eyes were large and glaring, being entirely unprotected by eyelashes, and as for eyebrows, they seemed to be eaten away and destroyed. The fellow's nose, however, was the most disgusting part of his face; for the nasal organ was entirely gone, and nothing was to be seen excepting two small holes which led to the chambers of the head.
I understood the reason that he was nicknamed Nosey, without asking a question, but it was not until some days after that I learned how he came to be so badly disfigured.
Charles Bowen, alias Nosey, was sentenced to transportation for twenty-five years for appropriating about ten thousand pounds to his own use by means of a forged will. He was a man of a good education, and withal shrewd and unscrupulous; but sharp as he was, it did not prevent his getting convicted and sentenced—and from the time that he stepped foot on board of the transport he began his career of defying officers and all wholesome discipline.
One day he attacked an assistant surgeon, who was attached to the vessel, and the doctor repelled him by hurling a bottle of oil of vitriol at his head. Bowen closed his eyes when he saw that the liquid was about to strike his face, and by resolutely keeping them closed until the powerful acid was cleaned from his flesh, managed to save them, and then the surgeons of the ship commenced and arrested the progress of the vitriol, and preserved his life; but not until the fellow's nose was entirely gone, and his eyebrows and cheeks nearly eaten away.
A more hideous-looking wretch, as he stood by the blazing pile of brush, I never saw; and it appeared to me that he gloried in his deformity, for he rolled his glaring eyes at me, and chuckled immensely when he saw that I regarded him rather closely.
"The stockman has given us the go-by," said one of the gang, returning from his pursuit of the old convict.
"Have you examined every bush and tree between this and the prairie?" asked the chief.
"As well as we can in the darkness," was the answer.