These squatters, who about this period--1825-35--sprang up in rank growth round about the principal stations, did much to give annoyance, and to increase the difficulties of the settlers. They were mostly emancipists or ticket-of-leave men, who occupied crown pastures without paying for them, or spent their energies in stealing horses and cattle. Sometimes they established themselves at the corners of the settlers' own grants of land, getting as near to estates as they could without detection. Their principal object in life seemed to make themselves useful to the convicts employed near them, for whom they kept "sly grog-shops," where they sold or bartered liquor for stolen goods. This ready market for stolen property was a source of great loss to the settlers. One calculated that it cost him £200 or £300 a year. Pigs, sheep, harness in bags, flour on its way to market--all these were purloined in large quantities, and passed at once to the receivers, who gave rum in exchange, and sometimes tea, sugar, and tobacco. The squatters were fined if caught at these illicit practices, but to recover money from them was like getting blood out of a stone. Another favourite _modus operandi_ was to knock up a sort of shanty close by some halting-place on the main line of road, where there was water handy and the drays could be made snug for the night. The draymen naturally flocked to the grog-shop, and naturally also obtained the sinews of war by making free with their masters' property.