Report 40280: Memory told of a possible encounter that ends a camping trip early near Park Hill

I was out with my fraternity camping near the Illinois River. It was around early October. We were in a small clearing near the river under a small hill. There were several of us in the group. Me and two of my friends walked into the treeline under the hill to gather some firewood for the campfire. It was dark and we only had one flashlight. As we gathered wood, up on the side of the hill something started rustling through the trees. The hill was thickly covered in Sumac, which would be very difficult to navigate, especially in the dark. Whatever was on the hill started approaching us, maybe about 100 feet away. It was starting to break some of the branches in the sumac and sounded big! We couldn't see anything through the dense brush, but whatever it was, was coming towards us. One of my friends picked up a rock and threw it towards whatever was making the noise. It stopped just momentarily and then began running in our direction. At that we all got scared and ran back to the campfire where the rest of the members were. None of the rest of our fraternity members heard anything. We thought they may have been trying to prank us, but all said they'd been right there waiting for us to bring back wood. We all decided to end our outing and got in the vehicle and headed back to the campus. This is about the best I can remember what happened, it's been many years ago now.