Possibly something else caused him for the moment to dismiss her from his mind. During his rapid walk he had noticed, as an accidental, and by no means an essential feature of the bleak landscape, the vast herds of crawling, purposeless cattle. An entirely new and distinct impression was now forming itself in his consciousness--namely, that they no longer were purposeless, vagrant, and wandering, but were actually obeying a certain definite law of attraction, and were moving deliberately toward an equally definite object. And that object was himself! Look where he would; before, behind, on either side, north, east, south, west,--on the bleak hill-tops, on the slope of the _falda_, across the dried-up _arroyo_, there were the same converging lines of slowly moving objects towards a single focus--himself! Although walking briskly, and with a certain definiteness of purpose, he was apparently the only unchanging, fixed, and limited point in the now active landscape. Everything that rose above the dead, barren level was now moving slowly, irresistibly, instinctively, but unmistakably, towards one common centre--himself! Alone and unsupported, he was the helpless, unconscious nucleus of a slowly gathering force, almost immeasurable in its immensity and power! At first the idea was amusing and grotesque. Then it became picturesque. Then it became something for practical consideration. And then--but no!--with the quick and unerring instincts of a powerful will, he choked down the next consideration before it had time to fasten upon or paralyse his strength. He stopped and turned. The Rancho of the Blessed Trinity was gone! Had it suddenly sank in the earth, or had he diverged from his path? Neither; he had simply walked over the little elevation in the plain beside the _arroyo_ and _corral_, and had already left the Rancho two miles behind him.