All about were evidences that the former engineer had already been hard at work.

The ground had been put in readiness to receive the crop and a bewildering, innumerable multitude of poles, connected with a maze of wire and twine, had been set out.

Farther on at a turn of the road, they came upon Dyke himself, driving a farm wagon loaded with more poles.
He was in his shirt sleeves, his massive, hairy arms bare to the elbow, glistening with sweat, red with heat.

In his bell-like, rumbling voice, he was calling to his foreman and a boy at work in stringing the poles together.

At sight of Presley and Vanamee he hailed them jovially, addressing them as "boys," and insisting that they should get into the wagon with him and drive to the house for a glass of beer.