Not sure what they did on Bonanza, as it never did really follow reality, but this is what happened to Henry Comstock:
Henry Comstock for whom the great discovery was named sold out his interests in the Ophir mine for $10,000. He would later claim in a rambling letter that the sale also included a one-eleventh share in the entire mine’ production in his lifetime, with an additional $100 per month guaranteed. Like his original claim of having recorded the 160 acres where Virginia City lay as a ranch, he had no written documents to back him up. He felt that he had been cheated and swindled. He stated in his letter that, "I am a regular born mountaineer, and did not know the intrigues of civilized rascality. I am not ashamed to acknowledge that." He finally reached the end of his rope outside of Bozeman, Montana September 27, 1870 and put a bullet in his own brain.