Footprints in Madison County, Arkansas

I believe this incident occurred in the summer of 1981, when I was sixteen. I was out of school at the time, and my best friend and I were out partaking in one of our favorite pastimes: spelunking of the amatueur sort. Our particular goal that day was the finding of a cave called Turner's Cave, one we'd heard about from my parents who said it had been a designated government fallout shelter. We knew of one that might qualify, as it had a large entrance and such, but it didn't seem large enough for a fallout shelter to us. We explored it once more (we'd been in it before), and then decided to move on down the creekbed and try to find another that might be it. The creekbed was dry, so the walking was easy. About a quarter-mile or so downstream from the cave's entrance, we happened upon an old logging road and decided to check out the other side of the ridge, as this side wasn't looking promising. We followed the logging road, which ascended the ridge at an angle, until we reached the top. At the top, the woods ended at a fenceline which bordered open pasture. It was about noon by then, maybe early afternoon, and we decided to sit down and take a break, as it was hot. So we crossed the fence and sat down on the grass of the pasture. We had been sitting thus for probably five or ten minutes when I realized I was hearing something in the woods behind me. Growing up in the country, I was used to hearing animals in the leaves of the forest floor, but I think what made me actually pay attention to this one was that I realized that it wasn't moving in a way I was used to hearing. I looked at my friend, who seemed to realize this at about the same time, and I said, "That's not a squirrel (which is what I had thought it to be at first)." We both rose and turned when suddenly my friend grabbed me and yelled "Look at that!" I followed his direction and could distinctly see the arm and leg of something tall and hairy standing behind a tree. We both froze in place, too afraid to do anything much. My friend wanted to run, but I warned him not to. Eventually, the manimal seemed to just disappear with hardly a sound. Much subdued, we decided to leave and followed the old logging road back out of the area, and my friend told me that he saw a track in the sand at the edge of the creekbed. He also had a better view than I did and said he could see the face and body.