gait

The pattern of an animal's movement — walk, trot, lope, gallop, bound, hop — as recorded in the spacing and arrangement of its tracks. Gait tells you what the animal was doing: a walking deer leaves evenly spaced prints in a straight line; a bounding rabbit leaves clusters of four with the hind feet landing ahead of the front. Speed, alertness, confidence, and fear all write themselves into gait. A tracker who can read gait doesn't just know what passed — they know its state of mind.