The _Windward_ had been preceded by the auxiliary ship the _Hope_, which, after depositing her stores at Etah, sailed for home, while the _Windward_ herself tried to push on north up Smith Sound. Ice, however, proved an insurmountable obstacle, and she was obliged to go into winter quarters near Cape D’Urville, on the north side of Princess Marie Bay. Peary’s plans for the autumn were threefold. In the first place, he wished to survey the land around his winter quarters, in the second place, he was anxious to obtain a supply of fresh meat for his party, and, in the third place, he intended to convey as large a supply of provisions as possible along the coast. He was completely successful in fulfilling each of these three objects. By the end of September he had explored much of the surrounding country, proving the continuity of Ellesmere and Grinnell lands, and dissipating several illusions which existed concerning Hayes Sound, which he was unable to find at all, Buchanan Bay, which had hitherto been held to be a strait, and Bache Promontory, which was popularly supposed to be an island. Early in September he relieved himself of all further anxiety concerning his supply of fresh meat, by killing a herd of seventeen musk-oxen, while, by using every ray of moonlight and often working in complete darkness, he had, by December 4, cached 3300 lbs. of provisions at Cape Wilkes. “No one,” he says, “who has not had the actual experience can imagine the work and annoyances involved in transporting, in semi- or complete darkness, those supplies along the frightful ice-foot which lines the Grinnell land-coast.” On December 20, when the winter, that is to say, was at its worst, he started off with six men and thirty dogs on a singularly unattractive journey to Fort Conger. The darkness was intense, the weather was bad and the way lay through most unpleasant places, but they stumbled on over the rough ice as best they could, and on January 6 they succeeded in reaching their destination. Peary, unfortunately, had to pay for his boldness in thus facing the Arctic winter, for he found, on arriving at the Fort, that both his feet were so badly frost-bitten that he was unable to walk, and when the time came to turn he had to be lashed to a sledge and dragged the whole way home. Worse, however, was to come, for the doctor found it necessary to amputate eight of his toes on his arrival at the ship in March, and Peary felt the effects of the operation for a long while afterwards. But he was not the sort of man to give in even to such a disaster as this, and in the early summer he insisted on making another trip to Fort Conger, in spite of the pain that walking over the hummocky ice caused him.