Told by Peter York.
Black Bear had a very good winter one time. It was a very hard winter
for the smaller animals on account of the snow and frost and storms.
This big Black Bear used to go on the deer runways and catch a deer and
eat him up, and the Lynx used to watch the Black Bear climb up in a
tree and jump on the deer as they passed along the runways, which they
had in the winter months, and which was an easy thing for a big black
bear to do. Once when the Lynx was very hungry he could not catch
anything as there was too much snow. Well, he thought that he would try
and kill a deer, so he went out on one of their runways and watched for
a deer to come along. Soon he saw one coming and he climbed up a tree
and when the deer came under the tree the Lynx jumped on his back. The
Deer started off wild and went all over the woods, but the Lynx still
held on having a good hold and the Deer could not shake him off. The
Deer knew that there was a leaning tree in the bush so he made for
that, knowing that he could knock the Lynx off as he ran under the
tree. The Deer ran very fast and as he ran under the tree there
happened to be a knot on the under side of the tree where the Deer
went, so the Lynx got his back skinned from his head to his tail. It
also just happened that an Indian was out hunting that way and tracking
deer. He saw a deer track which was a very bad one with blood all over.
So he followed it up till he came to the Lynx lying dead and a little
farther on he found the Big Buck dead too. The Deer had got so tired
that he lay down and died. So the Indian had good luck finding them
both.