In 1849 Robert Ellis drifted into the gold camps of Sacramento Valley on the American river, and who should he find out there but the daughter of Bill Johnson, now the wife of one of the miners. He learned that Bill Johnson had drifted into Southern Iowa and Missouri, where he assumed his old attitude, expecting free board and considerable consideration, but the pioneers in that community had to be "shown" and cared not much for what Johnson had been; the question was what he was then. A suitor in Mahaska county came to see his alleged daughter, but Bogus Johnson opposed and threatened him with dire disaster if he came within shooting distance. The suitor was not at all scared, having lived on the frontier longer than Johnson. The woman may have regretted the double life she had been living, and perhaps with her assistance--no one knows--Johnson was killed in a quarrel by the suitor, it was alleged, and prosecutions followed. The suitor and Kate after a long trial then drifted to California, and there Robert Ellis found them and heard the story that Captain Bill Johnson, once the terror of this part of Iowa, was a bogus Bill Johnson, and the light haired Kate was not the Kate of story and fiction at all. If it had not been for the obstreperous Bennett on the Wapsie and for the hickory stick in the hands of Robert Ellis bogus Bill Johnson might have terrorized this community much longer than he did. Another story was also told shortly after Johnson left by one of Johnson's henchmen, an old soldier, which shows the bad character and disposition of Johnson. William Abbe, one of the early settlers, and at one time a member of the legislature of Iowa, being in the employ of the government, having a contract to deliver provisions at Ft. Atkinson, was about to return to his home in Linn Grove, which fact was known to Johnson. The soldier related after Johnson's hasty departure that he and Johnson had entered into an agreement to blackmail Abbe and get some money out of him by inviting Abbe to remain in the Johnson cabin over night and then to threaten Abbe that he had assaulted the daughter of Johnson while accepting of his hospitality. Johnson was to remain in hiding while the soldier was set out on the trail to watch for Abbe and invite him to the cabin. This was done and the soldier sat out in the timber watching for Abbe during the afternoon and evening, but fortunately Abbe failed to make his appearance as expected and the deep laid plan fell through.