He couldn't find it until you came to help him. HMMM very good ploy on his part for help on a pack-out.

I've been duped by one like that before. "Dude, I need your boat to get to this elk I shot", we get there, drag my dinghy down a big hill, row across a little pond, and "find out" that 20 yards away is an old beaver dam we can easily walk across. I help him for hours dragging it out of the hole, and then I had to drag my boat out.