npos is just a token value that tells you that find() did not find anything (probably -1 or something like that). find() checks for the first occurence of the parameter, and returns the index at which the parameter begins. For Example,
string name = "asad.txt";
int i = name.find(".txt");
//i holds the value 4 now, that's the index at which ".txt" starts
if (i==string::npos) //if ".txt" was NOT found - in this case it was, so this condition is false
name.append(".txt");