Distinctly Montana Magazine

31 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m T HERE ARE PRECIOUS FEW WHO ARE PRIVILEGED, or brave, or foolhardy enough to live like the Hi-Line's Long George Francis, one of Montana's last outlaws, rodeo champion, cowboy, and onetime lawman. But nobody dies like him. For it was no illness that laid him low, no prolonged battle with time that left him aged and sapped. He died in such a bizarre, gruesome, and ultimately heartbreaking fashion that there are those even today who say it isn't possible. He had to have been murdered. Francis's proponents, who outnumbered his enemies, might think he ascended to heaven, there to receive his re- ward for a life well-spent, or at least not too misspent. He never killed anyone, after all. And what was a little armed robbery, a little livestock rustling against a lifetime of friendship, service, and damn fine roping? Hell, lots of folks called him, with obvious admiration, the "Robin Hood of the Hi-Line." But if Long George Francis could speak to us today from wherever souls as outsized as his go, what would he tell us? He'd probably say, "I never should've tried to make that damn car ride." • • • Long George Francis was many things: a prodigiously tal- ented roper and rider, a man who loved books, a poet, a lov- er with a broken heart, a quiet and mysterious man, and, most probably, a thief. But he was a thief of the old school— not a burglar, perhaps a stick-up man, but mostly someone who strongly felt that, as long as you hadn't branded your animal, he had as good a claim to it as you did. He was also lucky, having successfully avoided death all his life. BUT IF LONG GEORGE FRANCIS COULD SPEAK TO US TODAY FROM WHEREVER SOULS AS OUTSIZED AS HIS GO, WHAT WOULD HE TELL US? HE'D PROBABLY SAY, "I NEVER SHOULD'VE TRIED TO MAKE THAT DAMN CAR RIDE." LOnG GeORGe FRanCis FRANCIS FRANCIS by NICK MITCHELL • illustrated by ROBERT RATH

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