Francis Sinclair's journey fully depends on meeting the player. To accidentally travel to the past, Francis needed every rock carving so he could understand who he is and who those beings are, after that Francis would leave the "map" by mistake in his younger self's home, and then his younger self learns about the carvings, thus making him fascinated by the backstory of said carvings, eventually resulting in his travel to 1899/1907. The loop must repeat itself infinitely so that the events seen in Red Dead Redemption 2 occur.