Someone handed Nindemann a toy boat, which he used to tell the story of the Jeannette. All the villagers gathered around as he related the woeful tale: How the ship had left America and sailed the ocean. How it had become trapped in the ice and drifted for two years. How it had been crushed and had sunk far to the north. How thirty-three men had traveled for three months over the ice, hauling three boats behind them until they came to open water. And then how the three boats had become separated in a storm.
