Matthew Hazard, who received his commission from West Point in 1880 and is assigned to duty at Fort Delivery in the Arizona Territory, "the best one-troop post in the West," cherishes a high sense of vocation instilled in him by none other than Abraham Lincoln himself; he has the strength of character to pursue his goal and prevails against the hostility of his fiancee's parents to marry the woman he loves. Hazard is brave, conscientious and coltishly appealing, but he is somehow less than an epic figure. This deficiency prompted T. F. Curley to regret that A Distant Trumpet had not been longer in order to achieve a more satisfying characterization of its hero.

White Horn, a Chiricahua Apache who becomes a scout for the U.S.

Army, is the stuff of legend and is probably the most interesting character in the book. As a youth he worked hard...