One of the spokes jammed Peary's leg against the casement, making it impossible to extricate himself until both bones of the leg were broken.

The party urged him to return to the United States for the winter and to resume his exploration the following year.

But Peary insisted on being landed as originally planned at McCormick Bay, stating that the money of his friends had been invested in the project and that he must "make good" to them.

The assiduous nursing of Mrs.
Peary, aided by the bracing air, so speedily restored his strength that at the ensuing Christmas festivities which he arranged for the Eskimos, he out-raced on snowshoes all the natives and his own men! In the following May, with one companion, Astrup, he ascended to the summit of the great ice cap which covers the interior of Greenland, 5000 to 8000 feet in elevation, and pushed northward for 500 miles over a region where the foot of man had never trod before, in temperatures ranging from 10 deg.

to 50 deg.