The feeling of being watched in Umatilla County, Oregon

I was attending a senior Boy Scout leadership camp, Brownsea II, in NE Oregon in midsummer 1976. The only reason I recall the details of the date was because my birthday fell on the Sunday after camp broke up. The details of the location are fuzzy, the incident is not. I recall three inexplicable incidents from that week (27.June - 3.July). First, I recall waking up early in the week about 0600. Even in late June in the Blue Mountains, mornings are brisk, and no one was very quick to leave their tents. One of my campmates announced his intention to relieve himself about the same time I was crawling out of the tent. At that moment, I heard a great deal of brush movement in the hillside brush overlooking our camp. Unfortunately, I can't recall whether I heard footfalls or not. Knowing now that even deer are far from quiet when running through underbrush, I can't rule out the possibility of deer grazing immediately above our tents and becoming spooked as we exited our tents. But it WAS extremely noisy. Third (second is the most significant), the camp was breaking up Saturday morning and we were fixing lunch for our parents who were supposed to be arriving shortly. One of the camp leaders was showing off some footprints he claimed to have found by the river that morning and cast, then obliterated them to prevent distractions. I don't recall the particulars, but they were larger than average, proportionately correct as near as I can recall. I've always looked on the story behind those casts with both skepticism and intrigue. Most significant was a midweek event, I believe Wednesday night. The exercises was to follow a set of instructions using a compass to find a location, set up camp for the night, then return the next morning. Following our instructions, we made our way along a trail beside the creek up the wooded ravine. If memory serves me, we left somewhere around 1830, and walked some 1000 paces up the ravine ... roughly between a half and three-quarter mile distance. We were greeted by a camp staff who had placed himself unobtrusively off to the side to make sure we arrived safely, then headed back down the trail. The trail was not overly steep, but on the opposite side of the creek, the hill came right down to the creek and was reasonably thick with trees and vegetation. I no longer recall, but I believe I wouldn't be incorrect if I said we arrived between 1900 and 1930. Because of the ravine setting and the tall trees around us, darkness settled in quickly. I seem to recall the sun setting more or less on our left as we hiked up the trail After taking a few minutes to set up camp and start evening preparations, I, being a fisherman, decided to dip into my emergency gear and try my hand in the creek immediately downstream from the camp. It was probably about 1945 at this point ... still light, but darkness was closing in and fine details are harder to see. Using a small safety pin with a worm (I'm usually a fly fisherman), some monofilament and a piece of wood, I made a crude rig to test a couple of holes. One of the scouts watched me for five, maybe 10 minutes before returning to the camp between 30 and 50 yards away. Shortly after he left me, I had the distinctly uncomfortable feeling of being watched. Many times since then, I have been in the woods alone, frequently fishing, and have felt similar sensations, only to find deer hoof prints in the streamside mud filling with water, but this sensation was ... unique, as it made the hair on my neck stand up. The creek was not very wide, and I was standing more or less in the middle of it, straddling the stream with each foot on a rock and facing upstream, with the trail to my left (more or less west) and the wooded hillside on my immediate right. I recall very little standing room on my right. I hesitated for a moment or two, then turned around to my right. I have no explanation or recollection why I turned in that direction. Because this was a small ravine which was thorougly wooded on both sides, light was fading, but there was sufficient light to see by. Maybe 35 yards downstream, I didn't see much ... only what I can describe as a long leg and foot disappearing up the hillside into the trees and brush. It was much darker than the foliage, moving and so it stood out. As the leg disappeared from view, I vividly recall turning around shaking my head--a habit I still have--perhaps in disbelief at what I saw ... kind of like, tree stumps don't usually get up and move like that. Recently, while watching a nature program, I saw a similar angle of a bear disappearing into the brush in a similar direction. The bear's legs being shorter, the knees bent much closer to the ground and not much above the foot; what I saw was a foot bending at the ankle, but no bend above that. Also, the leg was lifted, unlike a bear's which is, at best, shuffled forward. Best estimates: I saw perhaps 2', 2.5' of leg, but no knee. Finally, I don't recall any odor or unusual silence at the time. One other lighter note: I learned later that night that eyelashes on the nylon inner lining of a down mummy bag sound a lot like cruching leaves but without the footfalls! Needless to say, it took a while to fall asleep that night. I am not aware of any further incidents from this camp at this time.