In the first two days Selous killed a fine caribou bull of the sub-specific race _Tarandus rangifer osborni_, a fine form of reindeer that exists from the Itcha Mountains in British Columbia to the east of the Kenai Peninsula. This variety, which is only found west of the Rocky Mountains, intergrades to the south with _Tarandus rangifer montanus_ of southern British Columbia, and to the north-west with _Tarandus rangifer stonei_ of the Kenai peninsula. It is by far the finest of the American caribou, with the exception of the nearly extinct race, a branch of _Tarandus rangifer labradorensis_, which belongs to the north-east corner of Labrador, and carries fine massive horns from 50 to 61 inches long, but not furnished as a rule with many points.[56] Selous was much cheered in getting so easily two fine specimens of this great deer at once. One night in the middle of September a fine display of the Aurora Borealis with its magnificent tongues of flame was observed, and Selous rightly says, "I count these splendours of the Arctic sky as amongst the most marvellous of all the wonders of the world," an opinion all who have seen them will endorse. In the next few days Selous killed another bull moose, but not a large one, carrying a head with a span of 50 inches, and then an old bull with horns evidently going back. At last dawned a day of great good fortune, for the hunter met and killed a great bull whose horns have seldom been equalled by any taken out of the Yukon Territory. The horns, measuring 67 inches across, a width not often surpassed even in the Kenai peninsula, were very massive, and carried 41 points; the skull and horns weighed over 75 lbs. "Altogether," he says, "it seemed to me I had at last obtained a trophy worth a king's ransom," for to a hunter such as he no bag of gold or diamonds would have seemed more precious. Meanwhile his friend, Charles Sheldon, had not been so fortunate as he usually was in finding the big sheep rams, and had only shot a few immatures and females and young for the extensive collection he afterwards formed for American museums, and, as the season was now late and the prospect of the "freeze up" imminent, the two hunters abandoned their hunting-camp and started down-stream on the return home. After some disappointments, one in which Sheldon lost a fine bull moose owing to a misfire, Selous and his companion reached Plateau Mountain, where Osgood and Rungius, who had enjoyed some good sport with moose and caribou, were again met. The whole party then went down-stream, and had some difficulty in getting through the ice which was now forming, but reached Selkirk safely on October 7th. On the whole this had been a very successful trip for Selous, but he was a little disappointed in not getting sheep, grizzly, and black bears. His own account of the whole trip is as follows:--