Eager as they were for booty the Thugs appear to have been courteous and forbearing towards one another, and equitable in the division of their spoils. Feringeea and twenty-six of his gang were one day cooking their dinners under some trees by the road-side when five travellers came bye, but could not be persuaded to stop and partake of their meal, saying they intended to sleep at Hirora that night, and they had yet eight miles to go. The Thugs followed after them, and also reached Hirora, but could discover no traces of the travellers. Feringeea, therefore, inferred that they must have fallen into the hands of another gang, and suddenly recollected having passed an encampment of Brinjarees (bullock-drivers) not far from the town. On the following morning he accordingly went back with a few of his comrades, and at once recognised a horse and a pony which he had observed in the possession of the travellers. "What have you done with the five travellers, my good friends?" he said. "You have taken from us our _merchandize_." They apologised for what they had done, pleading ignorance, and offered to share the booty; but this Feringeea declined, saying that he had no claim to a share, as none of his party was present at the _loading_. The division of the spoils was regulated with great nicety. The leaders were usually entitled to every tenth article, and to one anna in the rupee (one sixteenth) of actual money, besides their share as individuals. If the gang consisted of twenty, including the Jemadar, the booty was divided into twenty-one equal parts, of which the Jemadar received two. Five per cent. was then set aside for the stranglers, and the rest divided into three equal heaps, corresponding to as many equal sections of the gang. Each section marked a cowree (a shell), and the three were put into a man's hand without his knowing to which either belonged, who then placed one on each pile. The sections afterwards divided among themselves each its own lot.