Report 56212: Memory told of a scary, daytime encounter while frog hunting near Ranger

It was late summer early fall in 1977. Me and a friend were Bullfrog hunting on his granddads property south of Ranger, TX in the rough Canyon country. He had or leased a large section of land and had cattle on it. A particular pond was hard to access because road was washed out. It was a very long walk with the 22 long rifles we were carrying. The ground was very rocky and not much grass around here. The cattle and the rancher himself never came to this area. A small pond set next to a steep hill and we thought we might be able to shoot some frogs here. We were very quiet approaching the pond. We noticed lots of baby frogs but no adults. Something roared next to the hill. we began to retreat the pond. A large limb snapped and we could visibly see the cedar trees, mesquite trees moving as something large was moving through them. I told my friend "Hold your ground" as I dropped to one knee and readied to fire. I could see a large brown hairy object hiding behind a cedar tree. at 7 feet high it was 4 feet wide. I could not imagine what it could be.it was swaying back and forth from its hiding spot. Never giving me a good look. My friend broke and ran. The 22 felt pretty small by myself. I took off as well. I wondered if this thing would chase me down so I kept looking behind me. I kept hearing very large thuds as I ran. I heard a thud to the right and glanced over. A huge rock was bouncing across the ground. It was larger then any man could attempt to throw. It was hard to convince my friend to return with bigger guns we did a few days later. There was a bed made in an in cut in the hill where the thorns of mesquite limbs had all been removed. Armloads of small limbs made an odd bed. I found absolutely no hair on any of it. The broken limb was torn right off a mesquite tree like it was going to be used like a bat. The ground was not conducive of any kind of foot print.