Give a Boy a Gun

Claude Dallas styled himself as a modern-day mountain man. He lived off the land, rejected authority, and romanticized the violent independence of the Old West. But in 1981, his rebellion turned deadly.

When Idaho game wardens Bill Pogue and Conley Elms arrived at Dallas’s remote desert camp to question him about poaching, they never expected violence. But Dallas opened fire, killing both officers, executing one as he lay wounded on the ground. He buried the bodies and fled, launching one of the most intense manhunts in Western history.

The nation was horrified. But in the rural West, Dallas became a symbol. To some, he was a cold-blooded murderer. To others, a folk hero standing up to government intrusion. Supporters raised funds and hailed him as the last of a dying breed.

In Give a Boy a Gun, bestselling true crime author Jack Olsen dissects the complex case with chilling detail and journalistic precision. He paints a haunting portrait of Dallas, part myth, part menace, and gives voice to the victims whose lives were cut short.

Olsen explores not just the crime, but the cultural divide it exposed: law and order versus frontier freedom, justice versus vigilante romanticism. Even Dallas’s manslaughter conviction and later prison escape only added to the legend.

Tense, tragic, and unforgettable, Give a Boy a Gun is a riveting story of crime, myth, and the cost of turning outlaws into icons.