midnight
Certainly , then , the lawyers must have been to blame -- that is , unless they were only carrying out what others had hired them to do . That qualifying phrase started a new train of thought . Mechanically , dip by dip , swaying gently with each stroke as to a kind of rhythm , he drove the canoe onward , while he pondered it . It was easy to meditate out here , on the wide , empty lake , for no sound broke the midnight stillness but the soft swish of the paddle and the skimming of the broad keel along the water . It was not by any orderly system of analysis , or synthesis , or syllogism , that Ford , as the hours went by , came at last to his final conclusion ; and yet he reached it with conviction . By a process of elimination he absolved judge , jury , legal profession , and local public from the greater condemnation . Each had contributed to the error that made him an outlaw , but no one contributor was the whole of the great force responsible .