 Complete the following phrase:  Even before arriving at Sutters Fort, the emigrants were met by a recruiting agent of the United States Army. Urged on by a companion to whom he owed money, Lienhard too signed up for a three months service in the American military then engaged in war against Mexico in order to annex all its claimed possessions north of the Rio Grande. On the trek to Monterey, however, Lienhard became severely ill and barely survived the ordeal. On his return from Monterey in February 1847, he entered the service of the Swiss John Augustus Sutter 18031880. For the next six months he tended Sutters fruit and vegetable garden on the Yuba River, then served several months as his mayor-domo at the Fort, and briefly also as a supercargo on Sutters wheat laden schooner traveling to San Francisco. In January 1848 