There were several localities in New South Wales where the conditions were favourable for bushranging; places where the morality was low and where the police, as representatives of authority, were hated with all the hatred of the "old hand." One of these localities was in the spurs of the Great Dividing Range, in the neighbourhood of Burrowa. All round this district were a number of small squatters, principally cattle breeders, and among these no man's beast was safe. These small squatters were the terror of the big sheep and cattle breeders in the plains, and their principal industry was "duffing." Duffing was not stealing. If a moralist had remonstrated with a Burrowa man whom he found branding his neighbour's beast, the Burrowa man would have replied "I'm only trying to get back my own. He's duffed many a head of my cattle." Sheep could be duffed as well as cattle, but the ranges were generally too steep for sheep. One sheep breeder of the district, however, adopted, as his distinguishing mark, the plan of cutting off both ears, and he was a most successful duffer, because his recognised ear-mark enabled him to remove the ear-marks in his neighbours' sheep. It was no uncommon occurrence for a man to find that a calf sucking his cow had been branded by one of his neighbours, so that it might be claimed as soon as it was weaned. In such a case, if he had complained, his neighbour would probably have accused him of having "mothered" the neighbour's calf on his cow for the purpose of cheating him out of it.