From the halfway house to the Springs there were settlers and less danger.
He was conscious of being an object of curious inquiry.

Meeting stage coaches was equivalent to being fired at by fifty pistols.

Low words echoed from lip to lip: "Black Mose," "bad man," "graveyard of his own," "good fellow when sober," etc.

Sometimes, irritated and reckless, he lived up to his sinister reputation, and when some Eastern gentleman in brown corduroy timidly approached to say, "Fine weather," Mose turned upon him a baleful glare under which the questioner shriveled, to the delight of the driver, who vastly admired the new guard.
At times he was unnecessarily savage.

Well-meaning men who knew nothing about him, except that he was a guard, were rebuffed in quite the same way.