IT now becomes necessary to note a few minor events that occurred. As soon as the sheriffs started for Dixon with Joseph in their power, Emma Smith had her carriage made ready and at once started for Nauvoo with her children, in order to set some scheme or other on foot looking to her husband's deliverance. Joseph, when arriving at Dixon a prisoner, dispatched William Clayton with a message to his brother Hyrum telling what had befallen him, and requesting that assistance be at once sent to him. Clayton boarded the steamer _Amaranth_, at Rock Island, and arrived in Nauvoo about two o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday, the twenty-fifth of June. Meeting was in progress when Hyrum stepped into the stand and interrupted the proceedings, by announcing that he wanted to meet with the brethren at the Masonic Hall. The quiet of the Sabbath was immediately changed into excitement, and the brethren rushed to the hall in such numbers that not one-fourth could gain admittance, so the meeting was adjourned to the green, where a hollow square was formed about Hyrum, who related the story Clayton had told him respecting the capture of his brother, and called for volunteers to go to his assistance, and see that he had his rights. Immediately three hundred offered their services and from them a company was selected such as was needed; and before sunset, one hundred and seventy-five men were in the saddle under command of Generals Wilson Law and C. C. Rich, _en route_ for Peoria. Before the company left Nauvoo Elder Wilford Woodruff opened a barrel of gunpowder and invited every man that was going to the assistance of the Prophet to fill his flask or powder horn. The company was well armed and well mounted, and presented rather a formidable appearance. Besides sending out this company to find and protect his brother, Hyrum sent about seventy-five men on the steamer _Maid of Iowa_, a small steamboat purchased by the people of Nauvoo some months before, and placed under the command of Captain Dan Jones. The company was to go down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Illinois river, thence up that stream as far as Peoria; for it was expected that Joseph was being conveyed to Ottawa, and it was feared by Hyrum that an attempt would be made when the party approached the Illinois river to convey Joseph to one of the crafts plying between Peoria and St. Louis and so take him to Missouri. Hence this company on the _Maid of Iowa_ was instructed to take the course mentioned, and to examine the steamboats they met, and if they learned that the Prophet was a prisoner on any one of them, they were to render whatever assistance might be within their power.