EARLY YEARS 
pardons, speaking their language, dressing in 
the same kind of clothes, living in the same 
kind of dens, eating the same food, enjoying 
their pleasures, and frequently sharing their 
griefs. I have come to love these people. I 
know every man, woman, and child in their 
tribe. They are my friends and they regard 
me as theirs. 
After the first return to civilization, I was 
to come back to the savage, ice- and rock-bound 
country seven times more. It was in June, 
1898, that I again sailed north with Com- 
mander Peary and his party on board the 
Falcon^ a larger ship than the KitCj the one we 
sailed north in on the previous expedition, and 
with a much larger equipment, including sev- 
eral burros from Colorado, which were in- 
tended for ice-cap work, but which did not 
make good, making better dog-food instead. 
Indeed the dogs made life a burden for the 
poor brutes from the very start. Mrs. Peary 
was again a member of the expedition, as well 
as another woman, Mrs. Cross, who acted as 
Mrs. Peary's maid and nurse. It was on this 
trip that I adopted the orphan Esquimo boy, 
Kudlooktoo, his mother having died just pre- 
7 
