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hit its target as whatever it was had jerked quickly. It then let out a hiss and turned away. He could barely make out the sound of it moving quickly off through the woods. We re-lit the fire and decided that two of us would stay up and keep an eye out for the intruder.
    Bull and Allie would go first while Kyle and I would take the early morning watch. It was again difficult for me to get to sleep, but the fatigue of the day soon took its toll. I dozed off soundly. It was 3AM when Bull awakened us for our monitoring duty.
    As we sat by the fire peering off into the woods I told Kyle of the strange light and noise I had seen the night before. I told him I thought it was probably a shooting star even though it had appeared to slow slightly before dropping behind the ridge. And I had expected a vibration or at least some faint noise of an impact, but had not heard or felt any.
    As we sat by the fire we looked through Bull’s manual of Yosemite animals and found no reference to red glowing eyes. Again I was to the point of fondly thinking about my boring insurance job. I thought about how good the warmth, comfort and security of my own bed would feel. I had been on a roller coaster this entire trip and I had no vision as to where the next turn, drop or mishap was going to be. In my normal obsessive way I began to believe I would never be going home… home to the peace and security of Atlanta.
    When dawn finally came the others were up and moving about the camp. We had grits and left-over turkey for breakfast. We then began packing up for our next hike. Before we left it was decided that we would search the woods around where the red eyes had been seen.
    For half an hour we walked looking for any sign of whomever or whatever had been out there. Bull could find no trace of animal tracks and we were just about to give up when Allie noticed a small spot of liquid on top of a boulder. There were several drips of whatever it was.
    On the ground just below it was an almost perfect large circle. It looked as though something had been poured over it, dissolving all the grass, weeds and sticks, leaving an almost bare spot of nothing but dirt.
    It would not have drawn our attention had it not been an almost perfect circle. With nothing other than the anomaly to look at, we again turned our attention back to the liquid. Bull smelled it and remarked that it had an oily smell. He then touched it and rubbed it between two finger tips. He said it was definitely a type of oil and that it had not come from an animal.
    There was someone else in the woods with us and we were going to have to keep a close watch out for them. I hoped that it was just some other nosy hikers, but the fact that one of them, or at least something they had, had been hit by a .45 cal round had me edgy and wishing I had a gun of my own. We looked around for several minutes and then made our way back to the packs.
    The fire was soaked with water from the lake to make sure we did not start a disaster. You would not want to be trapped in the woodsy, grassy back-country with a wild fire chasing you. With a little bad luck and the wind blowing in the wrong direction you could easily be overtaken by the flames or smoke. For hikers, wildfire was a dangerous thing.
    With the campsite clean we donned our packs and proceeded on to the next leg of the journey. I again managed to be in the middle of the group not wanting to be surprised by whomever or whatever had been spying on us the night before.
    The day’s hike would be to the northern edge of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. We would have a stop at Tueeulala Falls, Wapama Falls and finally Rancheria Falls. Bull had a trail map with topological info on it and with our trusty compasses it seemed rather easy to navigate our course.
    We made our way back to the south down the other side of Frog Creek. When we left the creek at a big bend we continued on for a short distance before starting to make our way down to Hetch Hetchy. It was a