riding through the streets. He also claimed that Posey was forming a "mobile squadron" to rob the San Juan State Bank and that there were "sixty men skilled in the art of mountain warfare awaiting the call to service". On one occasion, a citizen of Blanding asked a newsman why he was not writing the truth; the newsman responded, "We're not ready to go home yet, and if we don't keep something going, we'll be getting a telegram to come home." Rumors began to circulate that another Indian war was about to begin so the Mormon settlers in Blanding and Bluff reacted quickly and mobilized a larger, mounted, posse to find Posey and his followers. They also tried to suppress any outside interference which had caused problems during the earlier conflicts. The posse trailed the chief's band and quickly caught up with them the next day, twenty miles from Blanding, inside a rugged area of desert strewn with canyons. The natives fought an unsuccessful rear guard action, from the top of Comb Ridge, to allow the women and children time to escape. All eventually surrendered though, over the course of the next few days. Posey escaped, but he was wounded by a bullet in one of his hips by a settler named Bill Young while trying to evade capture. Again the newspapers created their own versions of the story, one said that Posey was killed in a flash flood that washed him down a canyon, another said that he died of natural causes, being that he was in his sixties. Many Utes believed poisoned Mormon flour was the culprit but it is generally accepted that Posey died from blood poisoning caused by the gunshot wound. During the fighting, which lasted until March 23, Posey allegedly shot and killed the son of Joe Bishop when the two began to argue on top of the ridge. Posey was said to have been angry that Bishop's son and the other boy had caused so much trouble. Other accounts say the Bishop boy was killed by the posse. Aftermath Seventy-nine of the Ute and Paiute prisoners were taken to Blanding and put in the compound. They were released a few days later when Posey's body was discovered in Comb Wash. Marshal Jesse Ray Ward was taken to the location of Posey's remains by a party of Utes. There, he officially identified the body and