How did Dally make a difference, according to Ponyboy?

In The Outsiders, Ponyboy says Dally made a difference because he protected the people he loved, especially Johnny and Ponyboy, even though the outside world would remember him only as a criminal.

Ponyboy thinks about this most clearly after Dally dies. Dally had helped Johnny and Ponyboy escape after Bob’s killing by giving them money, clothes, a gun, and a hideout. He lied to the police to send them away from the boys. Later, at the burning church, Dally helped save them, and Ponyboy remembers “Dally pulling Johnny through the window of the burning church; Dally giving us his gun, although it could mean jail for him; Dally risking his life for us, trying to keep Johnny out of trouble.”

Dally’s care for Johnny matters most to Ponyboy. Dally is hard, violent, and reckless, but he does not want Johnny to become like him. When Johnny considers turning himself in, Dally pleads with him: “Johnny, I ain't mad at you. I just don't want you to get hurt. You don't know what a few months in jail can do to you. Oh, blast it, Johnny [...] you get hardened in jail. I don't want that to happen to you. Like it happened to me...” Ponyboy sees that Dally’s toughness hides a desperate wish to keep Johnny’s innocence alive.

Dally also makes a difference in Ponyboy’s life by helping him understand why stories like theirs need to be told. After Johnny and Dally die, Ponyboy wants people to understand boys who are judged as "hoods" before anyone knows them. Dally’s life becomes one reason Ponyboy writes, because he sees boys “going down under street lights because they were mean and tough and hated the world,” and he believes someone should speak before it is too late.