“Get thee behind me, Satan!” rendered in the choicest Delaware dialect, was the Saint’s response to the offers of the tempter. But as a more illustrious case attests, the Devil is not a person who will accept a first refusal. Changing his tactics, he brought upon St. Tammany and his Delawares many grievous afflictions of body and of estate, and while the good Chief’s limbs were sore and his heart was heavy, the cunning deceiver attempted to slink into the country unawares. St. Tammany, however, although sick and sore, slept with one eye open, and the Devil was promptly ordered to “get out of that,” with an emphasis which left him no option but to obey. Again and again the Devil, renewing his attacks, tried his best to circumvent St. Tammany, but finding that all was in vain, he at last flung patience and strategy to the winds, and boldly attacked the great Sagamore in order to overwhelm him by his infernal might. [Illustration: UNION SQUARE, NEW YORK, WITH THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT.] Then, says the legend, ensued the most tremendous battle that has ever been waged between man and his great enemy. For many months the great fight went on, and as Tammany and the Devil wrestled to and fro in mortal combat, whole forests were broken down, and the ground was so effectually trampled under foot that it has remained prairie land to this day. At last, after the forests had been destroyed, and the country trodden flat, St. Tammany, catching his adversary unawares, tripped him up, and hurled him to the ground. It was in the nick of time, for Tammany was so exhausted with the prolonged struggle that when he drew his scalping-knife to make a final end of the Evil One, the fiend, to the eternal regret of all the children of men, succeeded in slipping from Tammany’s clutches. He escaped across the river to New York, where--so runs the legend, as it is recorded by a writer in _Harper_--“he was hospitably received by the natives, and has ever since continued to make his home.” Such, in the quaint but suggestive narrative of the ancient myth, is the way in which the Devil first came to New York, where, as if in revenge for his defeat, he seems to have christened the political organisation which has been his headquarters after the name of Tammany.