A highwayman.
1868. Road-agent is the name applied in the mountains to a ruffian who has given up honest work in the store, in the mine, in the ranch, for the perils and profits of the highway.—W. H. Dixon, ‘New America,’ ch. xiv.
1869. This organization became known as “Road-Agents,” from the fact that they committed most of their depredations on the routes of travel; and to this day no other term is applied to highway-robbery in the Far West. They numbered over fifty desperate men, all well armed and skilled in the use of weapons, and had, besides, probably a hundred or more outside allies and dependents.—A. K. McClure, ‘Rocky Mountains,’ p. 230.
1881. This part of the State [Colorado] is at present in an unsafe condition, robberies and “shootings” are of only too frequent occurrence in the mining-camps; and the great distances between the settlements enable the “road-agents” to have a fine time of it.—Alma Strettell, ‘A Little Western Town,’ Macmillan’s Mag., xlv. 124/1 (Dec.). (N.E.D.)
1890. It could hardly be expected that a well-traveled road like this, over which so much treasure was being transported, and where so many teamsters were returning with their freight money about them, should be free from the inquisitive eye of the road agent, although it was for a while.—Haskins, ‘Argonauts of California,’ p. 208 (N.Y.).
