<P> The next day, the rest of Smith's men arrived at the mission, and that night the head of the garrison at the mission confiscated all their guns . On December 8, Smith was summoned to San Diego for an interview with Governor José María Echeandía about his party's status in the country . Echeandía, surprised and suspicious of the Americans unauthorized entrance into California, had Smith arrested, believing him to be a spy . Accompanied by Abraham LaPlant, Smith's Spanish interpreter, Smith was taken to San Diego, while the rest of the party remained at the mission . Echeandía detained Smith for about two weeks, demanding that he turn over his journal and maps . Smith asked for permission to travel north to the Columbia River on a coastal route, where known paths could take his party back to United States territory . Upon intercession of American sea Captain W.H. Cunningham of Boston on the ship, Courier, Smith was finally released by Echeandía to reunite with his men . Echeandía ordered Smith and his party to leave California by the same route they entered, forbidding him to travel up the coast to Bodega, but giving Smith permission to purchase needed supplies for an eastern overland return journey . Smith boarded the Courier sailing from San Diego to San Pedro, to meet his men . </P> <P> After waiting for almost another month for an exit visa, and then spending, at least, two more weeks breaking the horses they had purchased for the return trip, Smith's party left the mission communities of California in mid-February 1827 . The party headed out the way it had come, but once outside the Mexican settlements, Smith convinced himself he had complied with Echeandía's order to leave by the same route he had entered, and the party veered north crossing over into the Central Valley . The party ultimately made its way to the Kings River on February 28 and began trapping beaver . The party kept working its way north, encountering hostile Maidus . By early May 1827, Smith and his men had traveled 350 miles (560 km) north, looking for the Buenaventura River, but found no break in the wall of the Sierra Nevada range through which it could have flowed from the Rocky Mountains . On December 16, 1826, Smith had written in a letter to the United State ambassador plenipotentiary to Mexico his plans to "follow up on of the largest Riv (ers) that emptied into the (San Francisco) Bay cross the mon (mountains) at its head and from thence to our deposit on the Great Salt Lake" and appeared to be following that plan . They followed the Cosumnes River (the northernmost tributary of the San Joaquin River) upstream, but veered off it to the north and crossed over to the American River, a tributary of the Sacramento that flowed into the Bay . They tried traveling up the canyon of the South Fork of the American to cross the Sierra Nevada, but had to return because the snow was too deep . Unable to find a feasible path for the well - laden party to cross, and faced with hostile indigenes, he was forced into a decision: since they did not have time to travel north to the Columbia and make it in time to the 1827 rendezvous, they would backtrack to the Stanislaus River and re-establish a camp there . Jedediah would take two men and some extra horses to get to the rendezvous as quickly as he could and return to his party with more men later in the year and the group would continue on to the Columbia . </P> <P> After a difficult crossing of the Sierra Nevada, near Ebbets Pass, Smith and his two men passed around the south end of Walker Lake . After meeting with the only mounted indigenes they would encounter until they reached the Salt Lake Valley, they continued east across central Nevada, straight across the Great Basin Desert just as the summer heat hit the region . Neither they nor their horses or mules could find adequate food, and as the horses gave out, they were butchered for whatever meat the men could salvage . After two days without water, one man, Robert Evans, collapsed near the Nevada--Utah border and could go no further, but some indigenes Smith encountered gave them some food and told him where to find water, which he took back to Evans and revived him . As the three approached the Great Salt Lake, they again were unable to find water, and Evans collapsed again . Smith and the other man, Silas Gobel, found a spring and again took back water to Evans . Finally, the men came to the top of a ridge from which they saw the Great Salt Lake to the north, a "joyful sight" to Smith . By this time they only had one horse and one mule remaining . They reached and crossed the Jordan River where local indigenes told him the whites were gathered farther north at "the Little Lake" (Bear Lake on the border between present - day Utah and Idaho). Smith borrowed a fresh horse from them and rode ahead of the other two men, reaching the rendezvous on July 3 . The mountain men celebrated Jed's arrival with a cannon salute for they had given up him and his party for lost . </P> <P> As agreed, Ashley had sent provisions for the rendezvous, and his men took back 7,400 pounds (3,400 kg) of Smith, Jackson & Sublette furs and a letter from Smith to William Clark, then in the office of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the region west of the Mississippi River, describing what he had observed the previous year . Smith left to rejoin the men he had left in California almost immediately after the rendezvous . He was accompanied by 18 men and two French - Canadian women, following much of the same route as the previous year . However, in the ensuing year, the Mojave along the Colorado River who had been so welcoming the previous year had clashed with trappers from Taos and were set on revenge against the whites . While crossing the river, Smith's party was attacked; 10 men, including Silas Gobel, were killed, and the two women were taken captive . Jedediah and the eight surviving men, one badly wounded from the fighting, prepared to make a desperate stand on the west bank of the Colorado, having made a makeshift breast work out of trees and fashioned lances by attaching butcher knives to light poles . The men still had five guns among them, and as the Mojave began to approach, Jedediah ordered his men to fire on those within range . Two Mojaves were shot and killed, one was wounded, and the remaining attackers ran off . Before the Mojave could regroup, Smith and eight other surviving men retreated on foot across the Mojave Desert on the Mohave Trail to the San Bernardino Valley . </P>

Trace the development of the oregon country prior to the mexican war