Elk hunters find footprints on Stanley Butte witnessed in Idaho County, Idaho

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This incident happened in Sept of '74. I was 15 years old at the time. I was part of a party of 10 that had packed 20 head of horses into the Idaho wilderness to hunt for elk. We set up camp approx. 26 miles up the Boulder Creek drainage off the Lochsa River. During the pack-in, we incountered 2 hunters from the Boise area that had a once-in-a-lifetime bighorn sheep tag. They camped in the next valley over from us. It was the 2nd day of the hunt and I was paired up with an oldtimer named Louie who had spent much of his life in the mountains of Idaho. We had made it about 5 miles from camp in the morning and were almost to the top of Stanley Butte when we noticed that there was absolutely no sounds anywhere.....none...no birds, no squirrels, nothing. We commented about it, but really didn't read too much into it. As we got to the top of the Butte, the horses started to get extremely nervous. This concerned us since both horses were not afraid of bears or cougars (we had ridden p...