Dallas Winston is the toughest greaser of the bunch in Susan E. Hinton's novel, The Outsiders. "Tougher, colder, meaner," than all of Ponyboy's other friends, Dallas has eyes "cold with a hatred of the whole world." The local police has a file on him, and he "lied, cheated, stole, rolled drunks, jumped small kids--he did everything." With this type of resume, Dally can hardly be called gallant.
Yet, while Ponyboy and Johnny hid out at the church on Jay Mountain, they took turns reading Gone With the Wind, and Johnny remarked how the Southern gentlemen reminded him of Dally. Pony disagreed, but Johnny explained.
"... one night I saw Dally gettin' picked on by the fuzz, and he kept real cool and calm the whole time. They was gettin' him for breakin' out the windows in the school building, and it was Two-Bit who did that. And Dally knew it. But he just took the sentence without battin' an eye or even denyin' it. That's gallant."
Later that week Dally had a chance to prove Johnny right. When he went into the burning church in Chapter 6 to retrieve Johnny from the collapsing roof, Dallas Winston exhibited the gallantry that his young friend knew he was capable of showing.
However, in Chapter 10, there is nothing gallant about Dallas' choice of suicide by cop. His desire to die by waving an unloaded weapon simply showed an act of desperation brought on by the loss of his friend, Johnny.
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