Screaming or howling in Fresno County, California

My 15 year old cousin and I were walking in a medow below the ranch cook house. It was late october and the other ranch hands had left for the season, leaving my cousin and I to close up the ranch for the winter, there where no other people around the area. The summer backpackers had all gone. It was around dusk when we heard a noise, it started out as a low rumble, we almost felt it before we heard it. But it then rose in volume and pich. it was like a babbling scream. It could almost sound like words, the screem lasted at least 30 seconds or more then rose to a shreak and ended abruptly. It sounded as though it came from a point 50 or so yards from where we were standing, a thick grove of trees and deadfalls we call the island. I could hear something moving in the trees and starting to circle the meadow we were in. IT screamed again and sounded as though it had moved to our right. My cousin and I were shaken by the noise and we ran for the cook house. Sitting inside we heard it again and it sounded as though it was now in the medow below us, but the darkness made it imposible to see anything. At this time we moved from the cooks cabin to a building we call the winter room. We locked the door and spent the night there ( the room is bear proof and therefore safe). We heard it maybe five more times, around the ranch and once I was woken up at maybe three in the morning, by something outside our room. The next day I searched for tracks but the ground was frozen though it hadn't snowed yet. We found no tracks, but there was a hand print on the door of a store room where we keep food from bears during the summer. The print of the palm was nearly as big as both my palms put together, and the fingers where as big as three of mine in length (this thing had long fingers). The print was upside down near the bottom of the door as though it was trying to pry the door open from the bottom. (the print was still partily there next summer, At the time it seemed oily). I am twenty three. I have been backpacking and camping since I was five. I have grown up in the mountins and on the Ranch, I have heard mountin lions on more than one occassion, I have also heard a wounded bear screem (someone had shot it). The noise that my cousin and I heard was unlike any thing I have heard Ever. We call it the Yargle thing, and joke about it after the fact, but at the time it really scared us. (I don't scare easily we mountain men are from tough stock). I have heard and seen nothing since. This happend winter of 99.