Outlaw: The True Story of Claude Dallas

Jeff Long has written a most interesting story of the last old west type shootout that may ever occur in this country. It is true. Dallas was a guy who came from Virginia and wanted to be a cowboy. He went west and became what he had always wanted to be, and he was good at it. He had a superb work ethic. Along the way, he acquired some of the trappings of a real cowboy. He had a Winchester rifle with an octagonal barrel. He was a good shot, both with the rifle and pistols.

Over time, when he was living in Nevada, he spent his winters trapping coyotes and cats, with an occasional mountain lion thrown in. His last winter season he was trapping right along the Nevada/Idaho line and ran into a couple of Fish and Game officers from Idaho. One of them, Bill Pogue, the senior of the two, had a bit of an attitude problem, according to Jim Stevens, a friend of Dallas's who had brought him supplies. Pogue and Dallas were like kitchen matches and gasoline. Pogue was most likely playing it hard and Dallas most likely was stubborn.

The confrontation erupted in gunfire and Dallas, deadly quick, dropped both Pogue and his backup, Conley Elms. He finished them off, trapper style, with a gunshot behind the ear with a .22 rifle. I know Claude Dallas. The book pretty much portrays Dallas in a true light. Crowded, like he was that day, he would not back down. Later, when he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, he was captured without a fight and without any firearms. I've liked this book well enough to own it and to read it several times. Jeff Long's work is first rate all the way through. Though this book is no longer in print, it is a book to own.

Morgan Stinemetz