For the first few days of their journey they followed the course of the Hood, but soon the river curved westward and it was found necessary to strike inland across the desolate Barren Grounds, whose only recommendation was that they were comparatively flat, and that the heavily burdened party was spared the necessity of stumbling up hills and down valleys such as lined the course of the stream. Apart from this, the land over which they had to journey was as unattractive as could well be imagined. For miles and miles ahead and on either side of them stretched a vast, stony waste, on which not a trace of a living creature was to be seen. Of vegetation there was little or none, wood was conspicuous by its absence, and it was only on the rarest occasions that they were able to indulge in the luxury of a fire. The prospect was truly most uninviting. They had only been a single day on their journey across this forbidding country when the terrible truth dawned upon them that the winter had set in unusually early, and that their dangers and sufferings were, in consequence, to be increased a hundredfold. The first news of this was brought to them by a terrible gale which arose in the night, and continued to blow with such violence that it was useless for them to attempt to fight against it, and they had no choice but to remain in their tents. For two days they lay in their blankets, shivering with the cold and with the pangs of hunger gnawing at them, for their provisions were now well nigh exhausted, and they had little left but some portable soup and arrowroot, which they were obliged to husband with the utmost care. By the morning of the 7th the gale had abated but little, and the cold was still intense. However, they had to choose between two alternatives. Either they must push on in the teeth of the hurricane, or they must be frozen to death where they lay, and the former naturally seemed preferable. Heavily laden as they were, in the most favourable circumstances they could only march at the rate of a mile an hour, but now their progress was infinitely slower, for the ground was covered a foot deep with snow, and the marshes and swamps were crusted with a thin coating of ice which frequently gave way beneath them. The storm was still raging so violently that the Canadians, who took it in turn to carry the boats, were often blown down, and the larger of the two boats was soon smashed to pieces. From what Franklin knew of the character of the voyagers he was inclined to believe that the accident was by no means a mere misadventure, but that the canoe had been broken purposely to save the labour of further transportation. However, he could only make the best of a bad business, so he built a fire of the fragments, and over it he cooked the last of his arrowroot and soup.