There were two warring tribes in the Andes, one that lived in the
lowlands and the other high in the mountains. The mountain people
invaded the lowlanders one day, and as part of their plundering of
the people, they kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families
and took the infant with them back up into the mountains.
The lowlanders didn't know how to climb the mountain. They didn't
know any of the trails that the mountain people used, and they didn't
know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the
steep terrain.
Even so, they sent out their best party of fighting men to climb the
mountain and bring the baby home.
The men tried first one method of climbing and then another. They
tried one trail and then another. After several days of effort,
however, they had climbed only several hundred feet.
Feeling hopeless and helpless, the lowlander men decided that the
cause was lost, and they prepared to return to their village below.
As they were packing their gear for the descent, they saw the baby's
mother walking toward them. They realized that she was coming down
the mountain that they hadn't figured out how to climb.
And then they saw that she had the baby strapped to her back. How
could that be?
One man greeted her and said, "We couldn't climb this mountain. How
did you do this when we, the strongest and most able men in the
village, couldn't do it?"
She shrugged her shoulders and said, "It wasn't your baby."