The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-06-23
TRAPS MUsKRATs FOR A LIVING.

Frederick Arndt, bachelor and philosopher has found way to for tune through a Chicago muskrat farm and is busily engaged in the biggest harvest of muskrat pelts ever gathered within the confines of America's second eitv Arht is believed to be the only man in the country farming for musk rats and he is surely one of the busi- est men that ever ran any kind of farm. Night and day he labors the click. click of his sharp steel traps sounding up and down the marshy shores of Lake Calumet all night and the splash of his oars daytlmes telling tales of his energy in the harvest.
 Arndt's acres of muskrat families lie along the northern end of the big round lake on Chicago's southern bord- CT. LAll along the shore are their colo nies, where little ones may be reared in safety, protected on all sides by half mile of bog and wallow, impene- trable to human kind. There Ane muskrat tribes are born, grow, live, fight and die, for those conditions form the cycle of muskrat existence.
 Out in the middle of the marsh land Arndt built his cabin. He gave up the world and it's ways. Winter and sum- mer he lived alone; cold and heat were alike to, him. He fished and hunted and found happiness. For he had good dog and there were fish to catch and birds to shoot and always the muskrats.
 As a muskrat farmer Arndt lives life of almost idyllic ease in summer. He fishes and rows by day and by night sits and smokes and listens to the booming bull frogs and the squeals of fighting muskrats growing fat against the coming winter. Sometimes he locks up his little cabin and spends day or two among men that he may be glad when he goes home that he is privileged to be trapper and philosopher rather than toller among thousands
 With the coming of cold weather Arndts eyes brighten. Before the first furry of snow he has seen from his boat the uprearing by the fiat tailed animals of his farm countless little round houses. Teeth are busy all about him and reeds and bulrushes fall by thousands that the little animals may have shelter from storm and chill.
 Where there has been fighting Arndt sees peace. Where warfare was waged in summer he sees calm and cooperation. For yards about each lit- tie hummock designed to shelter musk rat colonies the marsh is cut clear of vegetation before the first frosts. Every stick and blade of wild grass goes to the making of the winter home
 At last comes the snow and with a final whisk of their tails the muskrats run for shelter Sometimes as many as eighteen of them pile into one house All the houses have entrances and exits under water, that cold and storm shall not break up social affairs in the colonies and imperil lives by freezing and flood.
 The big wild rats cannot prepare against Arndt's invasion and he goes among their houses with his traps with his traps without fear. Behind him is the clicking of snapping steel and the squealing of imprisoned rats, some of them fighting against death by drowning as the heavy traps draw them under water.
 It has been the best season on re- cord said Arndt. Sometimes I get a lot of 'em. Then again they avoid the traps. It is all right anyway I make a living somehow. What's the use of worrying?"
 There's no worrying this year. It's getting better and better all the time. The rats don't seem to mind bad water. The only thing that bothers is the price-and 20 cents ain't much for muskrat skin, eh?"-Chieago Daily News.