Second to the stove in the office, the Snow family was the attraction in the Hinds House, for the entertainment they frequently furnished was as free as the wood that the _habitues_ fed so liberally to the sheet-iron stove. A psychological writer has asserted that when an extremely sensitive person meets for the first time one who is to figure prominently in his life, he experiences an inward tremor. Whether it was that Old Man Hinds was not sufficiently sensitive or was too busy at the time to be cognizant of inward tremors, the fact is he was not conscious of any such sensation when the "Musical Snows" alighted stiffly from the Beaver Creek stage; yet they were to fill not only his best rooms but his whole horizon. "Nightingales and Prodigies," the handbills said, and after the concert nobody questioned their claims. The "Musical Snows" liked the people, the food, the scenery--and the climate which was doing Mr. Snow such a lot of good--so well that they stayed on. There were so many of them and they rested so long that their board-bill became too hopelessly large to pay, so they did not dishearten themselves by trying. Then while freight was seven cents a pound from the railroad terminus and Old Man Hinds was staring at the ceiling in the tortured watches of the night trying to figure out how he could make three hams last until another wagon got in, a solution came to him which seemed the answer to all his problems. He would turn the hotel over to the "Musical Snows" and board with them! It was the only way he could ever hope to catch up. To board them meant ruin. So the Snow family abandoned their musical careers and consented to assume the responsibility temporarily--at least while Pa was "poahly." This was four years ago, and "Pa" was still poahly. He spent most of his time in a rocking chair upstairs by the stove-pipe hole where he could hear conveniently. When the stove-pipe parted at the joint, as it sometimes did, those below knew that Mr. Snow had inadvertently clasped the stove-pipe too tightly between his stockinged feet, though there were those who held that it happened because he did not like the turn the talk was taking. At any rate the Snow family spread themselves around most advantageously. Mr. Will Snow, the tenor of the "Plantation Quartette," appeared behind the office desk, while Mr. Claude Snow, the baritone, turned hostler for the stage-line and sold oats to the freighters. And "Ma" Snow developed such a taste for discipline and executive ability that while she was only five feet four and her outline had the gentle outward slope of a churn, Ore City spoke of her fearfully as "SHE."